
aass_£Ll 



Book. 



Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
in 2011 witii funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



littp://www.arcliive.org/details/pliilosopliyofactiOOstew 








li^ccll a^J- ii^ J-o^vi . ((i. (^n 



/ "r/ / .:::>/ J>n 



PHILOSOPHY 



ACTIVE AND MOEAL POWERS OP MAN. 



DUGALD STEWART, F. R. SS. Lond. and Ed. 



I 

V 



REYISED, WITH OMISSIONS AND ADDITIONS, 

By JAMES WALKER, D. D., 

PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD COLLEGE, 



CAMBRIDGE: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN BARTLETT. 

3SooftscUer to t|)e SSnfbersitu. 

1849. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 

John Bartlett, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 

6t E T C A L F AND COMPANY, 

PRINTERS TO TRB INIVERSITY. 



PREFACE 

BY THE EDITOR 



Sir James Mackintosh has said of Mr. Stewart, — "Per- 
haps few men ever lived, who poured into the breasts of 
youth a more fervid and yet reasonable love of liberty, of 
truth, and of virtue. How many are still alive, in different 
countries, and in every rank to which education reaches, 
who, if they accurately examined their own minds and lives, 
would not ascribe much of whatever goodness and happiness 
they possess to the early impressions of his gentle and per- 
suasive eloquence ! " 

The Philosojyliy of the Active and Moral Poioers of Man 
was the last of his publications ; it came from the press in 
the spring of 1828, a few weeks before the author's death. 
An unfriendly and severe critic in the Penny CycIopcBdia 
admits, in respect to this treatise, that it is " by far the least 
exceptionable of his works. It is more systematic, and con- 
tains more new truths, than any of his metaphysical writ- 
ings ; and his long acquaintance with the world and with let- 
ters enabled him to suggest many obvious but overlooked 
analyses." Only two editions of it have appeared in this coun- 
try, — one separately in 1828, the other in a collection of his 



IV PREFACE. 

works in the following year ; the former has long been out of 
print. 

The author begins his Preface by apologizing for " the 
large and perhaps disproportionate space " allotted by. him to 
the evidence and doctrines of natural religion. This part, 
making nearly one third of the whole, has been omitted in 
the present edition, as being out of place here, however ex- 
cellent in itself. Other retrenchments have also been made 
in respect to unimportant details, in order to find room, with- 
out transgressing the prescribed limits, for some additional 
notes and illustrations. The latter, which are indicated by 
brackets, or otherwise, as they occur, consist almost exclusive- 
ly of extracts from living or late writers, or references to 
them, and are inserted with a view to mark whatever prog- 
ress has been made or attempted in ethical speculation since 
Mr. Stewart's day. 

Some changes have been made in the distribution and num- 
bering of the chapters and sections, and sub-sections have 
been introduced for the first time. The use of the latter in 
giving a more distinct impression of the successive steps in 
the argument or exposition, no practised teacher will fail to 
appreciate. The Latin and Greek citations in the text are 
translated in the present edition, where this had not been done 
by the author. The translations are taken, for the most part, 
from common sources, without particular acknowledgment, 
the only object being to fit the work for more general and 
convenient use as a text-book. 

Cambridge, August 16, 1849. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction, .......... 1 



BOOK I. 

OF OUR INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

CHAPTER I. 
OF OUR APPETITES, . • . .10 

CHAPTER II. 

OF OUR DESIRES, . . . 14 

Sect. I. The Desire of Knowledge, ..... 15 

II. The Desire of Society, 19 

III. The Desire of Esteem, 26 

IV. The Desire of Power, . . . ... 41 

V. Emulation, or the Desire of Superiority, ... 45 

CHAPTER III. 

OF OUR AFFECTIONS, 

Sect. I. General Observations, ...... 53 

II. Of the Affections of Kindred, 58 

III. Of Friendship, - . 62 

IV. Of Patriotism, .66 

V. Of Pity to the Distressed, 75 

b 



VI CONTENTS. 

VI. Of Resentment, and the various other Angry Affec- 
tions grafted upon it, commonly considered by 
Ethical Writers as Malevolent Affections, . 86 



BOOK II. 

OF OUR RATIONAL AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES 
OF ACTION. 

CHAPTER I. 

OF A PRUDENTIAL REGARD TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS, 
OR WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED BY MORALISTS 
THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-LOVE, . .• . . .96 

CHAPTER II. 
OF THE MORAL FACULTY. 

Sect. I. The Moral Faculty not resolvable into Self-love, . 108 
II. Examination of Hartley's Theory of the Formation 

of the Moral Sense by Association alone, . 117 

III. The Moral Constitution of Human Nature not dis- 

proved by the Diversity in Men's Moral Judgments, 124 

IV. Licentious Systems of Morals, . . . . . 145 

Appendix to Chapter II. 
Bentham and his Followers, 160 

CHAPTER III. 

ANALYSIS *0F OUR MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMO- 
TIONS, 176 

Sect. I. Of the Perception of Right and Wrong, . ISl 

II. Of the Agreeable and Disagreeable Emotions arising 
from the Perception of what is Right and Wrong 

in Conduct, . 203 

III. Of the Perception of ftlerit and Demerit, . . 214 



CONTENTS. VII 

CHAPTER IV. 
OF MORAL OBLIGATION, . . .219 

CHAPTER V„ 

OF CERTAIN PRINCIPLES WHICH COOPERATE WITH 
OUR MORAL POWERS IN THEIR INFLUENCE ON 
THE CONDUCT, ........ 228 

Sect. I. Of Decency, or a Regard to Character, . . . 228 

II. Of Sympathy, 229 

III. Of the Sense of the Ridiculous, . . . . 245 

IV. Of Taste, considered in its Relation to Morals, . 248 

CHAPTER VI. 

OF MAN'S FREE AGENCY. 

Sect. I. Preliminary Observations, 251 

II. Review of the Argument for Necessity, . . . 256 

III. Is the Evidence of Consciousness in Favor of the 

Scheme of Free-will, or of that of Necessity .' 281 

IV. Of the Schemes of Free-will, and of Necessity, con- 

sidered as influencing Practice, .... 290 
V. On the Argument for Necessity drawn from the Pres- 
cience of the Deity, . . . _ . . . 296 



BOOK III. 

OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF OUR DUTY. 

CHAPTER I. 
OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT THE DEITY, 304 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OUR FELLOW- 
CREATURES, ... 313 

Sect. I. Of Benevolence, 314 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

II. Of Justice, 329 

III. Of the Right of Property, 340 

IV. Of Veracity, 3ul 

CHAPTER III. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OURSELVES, 358 

Sect. I. Of the Duty of employing the Means we possess to 

secure our own Happiness, ..... 359 

II. Of the Different Theories of Happiness, . 361 

III. Means of promoting and securing Happiness, . . 373 



BOOK IV. 

OF THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

CHAPTER I.. 
OF THE GENERAL DEFINITION OF VIRTUE, . 395 

CHAPTER II. 

ON AN AMBIGUITY IN THE WORDS RIGHT AND WRONG, 
VIRTUE AND VICE, 398 

CHAPTER III. 

OF THE OFFICE AND USE OF REASON IN THE PRAC- 
TICE OF MORALITY, 402 

APPENDIX TO BOOK IV. 

Sect. I. Sir James Mackintosh's Theory of Morals, . . 406 
11. Jouffroy's Theory of Morals, '. . . . 418 



THE 



PHILOSOPHY 



ACTIVE AND MORAL POWERS OF MAK 



INTRODUCTION. 



I. Connection betiveen the Intellectual and the Jlctive 
Powers.'\ In my former work on the Human Mind I 
confined my attention almost exclusively to man consid- 
ered as an intellectual being ; and attempted an analysis 
of those faculties and powers which compose that part of 
his nature commonly called his intellect or his understand- 
ing. It is by these faculties that he acquires his knowl- 
edge of external objects ; that he investigates truth in the 
sciences ; that he combines means in order to attain the 
ends he has in view ; and that he imparts to his fellow- 
creatures the acquisitions he has made. A being might, 
I think, be conceived, possessed of these principles, with- 
out any of the active propensities belonging to our species, 
at least without any of them but the principle of curiosity ; 
— a being formed only for speculation, without any de- 
termination to the pursuit of particular external objects, 
and whose whole happiness consisted in intellectual grati- 
fications. 

But, although such a being might perhaps be conceived 
to exist, and although, in studying our internal frame, it be 
convenient to treat of our intellectual powers apart from 
our active propensities, yet, in fact, the two are very inti- 
mately, and indeed inseparably, connected in all our mental 
1 



Z INTRODUCTION. 

operations. I have already hinted, that, even in our spec- 
ulative inquiries, the principle of curiosity is necessary to 
account for the exertion we make ; and it is still more ob- 
vious, that a combination of means to accomplish particular 
ends presupposes some determination of our nature which 
makes the attainment of these ends desirable. Our active 
propensities, therefore, are the motives which induce us to 
exert our intellectual powers ; and our intellectual powers 
are the instruments by which we attain the ends recom- 
mended to us by our active propensities : — 

" Reason the card, but passion is the gale." 

It will afterwards appear, that our active propensities 
are not only necessary to produce our intellectual exer- 
tions, but that the state of the intellectual powers, in the 
case of individuals, depends, in a great measure, on the 
strength of their propensities, and on the particular pro- 
pensities which are predominant in the temper of their 
minds. A man of strong philosophical curiosity is likely 
to possess a much more cultivated and inventive under- 
standing than another of equal natural capacity, destitute 
of the same stimulus. In like manner, the love of fame, 
or a strong sense of duty, may compensate for original de- 
fects, or may lay the foundation of uncommon attainments. 
The intellectual powers, too, may be variously modified by 
the habits arising from avarice, from the animal appetites, 
from ambition, or from the benevolent affections ; inso- 
much that the moral principles of the miser, of the elegant 
voluptuary, of ihe political intriguer, and of the philan- 
thropist are not, perhaps, more dissimilar than the ac- 
quired capacities of their understandings, and the species 
of information with which their memories are stored. 
Among the various external indications of character, few 
circumstances will be found to throw more light on the 
ruling passions of individuals than the habitual direction of 
their studies, and the nature of those accomplishments 
which they have been ambitious to attain. 

When Montaigne complains of "the difficulty he expe- 
rienced in remembering the names of his servants ; of his 
ignorance of the value of the French coins which he was 
daily handling ; and of his inability to distinguish the dif- 



INTRODUCTION. 



ferent kinds of grain from each other, both in the earth 
and in the granary "; * his observations, instead of proving 
the point which he supposed them to establish (an origi- 
nal and incurable defect in his faculty of memory), only 
afford an illustration of the little interest he took in things 
external, and of the preternatural and distempered en- 
grossment of his thoughts with the phenomena of the in- 
ternal world. To this peculiarity in his turn of mind he 
has himself alluded, when he says, " I study myself more 
than any other subject. This is my metaphysic ; this my 
natural philosophy." A person well acquainted with the 
peculiarities of Montaigne's memory might, I think, on 
comparing them with the general superiority of his mental 
powers, have anticipated him in this specification of the 
study which almost exclusively occupied his attention. f 

Helvetius in his book De VEsprit (a work which, 
among many paradoxical and some very pernicious opin- 
ions, contains a number of acute and lively observations) 
has prosecuted, v/ith considerable success, this last view 
of human nature, and has collected a variety of amusing 
facts to illustrate the influence of the passions on the in- 
tellectual powers. " It is the passions," he observes, 
" that rouse the soul from its natural tendency to rest, and 
surmount the vis inertias, to which it is always inclined to 
yield ; and it is the strong passions alone that prompt 
men to the execution of those heroic actions, and give 
birth to those sublime ideas, which command the admi- 
ration of ages. 

" It is the strength of passion alone that can enable men 
to defy dangers, pain, and death. 



* Montaigne's Essays, Book II. Chap. xvii. 

■f The following remarks of the learned and ingenious Dr. Jortin are 
not unworthy of the attention of those whose taste leads them to the 
observation and study of character. 

" From the complexion of those anecdotes which a man collects from 
others, or which he forms by his own pen, may, without much diffi- 
culty, be conjectured what manner of man he was. 

" The human being is mightily given to assimilation, and, from the 
stories which any one relates with spirit, from the general tenor of his 
conversation, and from the books or associates to which he most ad- 
dicts his attention, the inference cannot be far distant as to the texture 
of his mind, the vein of his wit, or, may we add, the ruling passion of 
his heart." — Jortin's Tracts. Vol. I. p. 445. 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

" It is the passions, too, which, by keeping up a per- 
petual fermentation in our minds, fertilize the same ideas, 
which, in more phlegmatic temperaments, are barren, and 
resemble seed scattered on a rock. 

" It is the passions which, having strongly fixed our 
attention on the object of our desire, lead us to view it 
under aspects unknown to other men ; and which, conse- 
quently, prompt heroes to plan and execute those hardy 
enterprises which must always appear ridiculous to the 
multitude till the sagacity of their authors has been evinced 
by success." * 

To this passage, which is, I think, just in the main, I 
have only to object, that, in consequence of the ambiguity 
of the word passion, it is apt to suggest an erroneous idea 
of the author's meaning. It is plain that he uses it to de- 
note our active principles in general ; and, in this sense, 
there can be no doubt that his doctrine is well founded ; 
inasmuch as, without such principles as curiosity, the love 
of fame, ambition, avarice, or the love of mankind, our in- 
tellectual capacities would for ever remain sterile and use- 
less. But it is not in this sense that the word passion is 
most commonly employed. In its ordinary acceptation it 
denotes those animal impulses which, although they may 
sometimes prompt to intellectual exertion, are certainly 
on the whole unfavorable to intellectual improvement. 
Helvetius himself has not always attended to this ambi- 
guity of language ; and hence may be traced many of the 
paradoxes and errors of his philosophy. 

To these slight remarks it may not be useless to sub- 
join an observation of La Rochefoucauld, which is equally 
refined and just ; and which, in its practical tendency, 
calls the attention to a source of danger in a quarter 
where it is too seldom apprehended. " It is a mistake 
to believe that none but the violent passions, such as am- 
bition and love, are able to triumph over the other active 
principles. Laziness, as languid as it is, often gets the 
mastery of them all ; overrules all the designs and actions 
of life, and insensibly consumes and destroys both passions 
and virtues." f 

* De I' Esprit, Discours III. Chap. vi. 
i Sentences et Maximes, cclxvi. 



INTRODUCTION. 



From the foregoing observations it appears, that, in ac- 
counting for the diversities of genius and of intellectual 
character among men, important lights may be derived 
from an examination of their active propensities. It is of 
more consequence for me, however, to remark at present 
the intimate relation which an analysis of these propensi- 
ties bears to the theory of morals, and its practical con- 
nection with our opinions on the duties and the happiness 
of human life. Indeed, it is in this way alone that the 
light of nature enables us to form any reasonable conclu- 
sions concerning the ends and destination of our being, 
and the purposes for which we were sent into the world : 
Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur.* It forms, 
therefore, a necessary introduction to the science of ethics, 
or rather is the foundation on which that science may rest. 

II. Object and Plan of the Work.l In prosecuting our 
inquiries into the Active and the Moral Powers of Man, 
I propose, first., to attempt a classification and analysis of 
the most important principles belonging to this part of 
our constitution ; and, secondly., to treat of the various 
branches of our duty. Under the former of these heads, 
my principal aim will be to illustrate the essential distinc- 
tion between those active principles which originate in 
man's rational nature, and those which urge him, by a 
blind and instinctive impulse, to their respective objects. 

In general, it may be here remarked, that the word 
action is properly applied to those exertions which are 
consequent on volition, whether the exertion be made on 
external objects, or be confined to our mental operations. 
Thus, we say the mind is active when engaged in study. 
In ordinary discourse, indeed, we are apt to confound to- 
gether action and motion. As the operations in the minds 
of other men escape our notice, we can judge of their 
activity only from the sensible effects it produces ; and 
hence we are led to apply the character of activity to 
those whose bodily activity is the most remarkable, and to 
distinguish mankind into two classes, the active and the 
speculative. In the present instance, the word active is 

* Persius, Sat. III. ]. 67. 
1* 



INTRODUCTION. 

used in its most extensive signification, as applicable to 
every voluntary exertion. 

According to the definition now given of the word ac- 
tion^ the primary sources of our activity are the circum- 
stances in which the acts of the will originate. Of these 
there are some which make a part of our constitution, 
and which, on that account, are called active principles. 
Such are hunger, thirst, the appetite which unites the 
sexes, curiosity, ambition, pity, resentment. These ac- 
tive principles are also called powers of the will, because, 
by stimulating us in various ways to action, they afford 
exercise to our sense of duty and our other rational prin- 
ciples of action, and give occasion to our voluntary deter- 
minations as free agents. 

III. Difficulty of the Study.] The study of this part 
of our constitution, although it may at first view seem to 
lie more open to our examination than the powers of the 
understanding, is attended with some difficulties peculiar 
to itself. For this various reasons may be assigned ; 
among which there are two that seem principally to claim 
our attention. 

1 . When we wish to examine the nature of any of our 
intellectual principles, we can at all times subject the 
faculty in question to the scrutiny of reflection ; and can 
institute whatever experiments with respect to it may be 
necessary for ascertaining its general laws. It is charac- 
teristic of all our operations purely intellectual to leave 
the mind cool and undisturbed, so that the exercise of the 
faculties concerned in them does not prevent us from an 
analytical investigation of their theory. The case is very 
different with our active powers, particularly with those 
which, from their violence and impetuosity, have the 
greatest influence on human happiness. When we are 
under the dominion of the power, or, in plainer language, 
when we are hurried by passion to the pursuit of a par- 
ticular end, we feel no inclination to speculate concerning 
the mental phenomena. When the tumult subsides, and 
our curiosity is awakened concerning the past, the moment 
for observation and experiment is lost, and we are obliged 
to search for our facts in an imperfect recollection of what 



INTRODUCTION. 



was viewed, even in the first instance, through the most 
troubled and deceitful of all media. 

Something connected with this is the following remark 
of Mr. Hume : — "Moral philosophy has this peculiar dis- 
advantage, which is not to be found in natural, that, in col- 
lecting its experiments, it cannot make them purposely, 
with premeditation, and after such a manner as to satisfy 
itself concerning every particular difficulty that may arise. 
When I am at a loss to know the effects of one body upon 
another in any situation, I need only put them in that situ- 
ation, and observe what results from it. But should I en- 
deavour to clear up, after the same manner, any doubts in 
moral philosophy, by placing myself in the same case with 
that which I consider, it is evident that this reflection and 
premeditation would so disturb the operation of my natu- 
ral principles, as must render it impossible to form any 
just conclusion from the phenomenon. We must there- 
fore''glean up our experiments in this science from a cau- 
tious observation of human life, and take them as they 
^^^W in the common course of the world, by men's be- 
haviour in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures."* 

2. Another circumstance which adds much to the diffi- 
culty of this branch of study is the great variety of our 
active principles, and the endless diversity of their combi- 
nations in the characters of men. The same action may 
proceed from very different, and even opposite, motives in 
the case of two individuals, and even in the same individu- 
al on different occasions ; — or an action which in one 
man proceeds from a single motive may, in another, pro- 
ceed from a number of motives conspiring together and 
modifying each other's effects. The philosophers who 
have speculated on this subject have in general been mis- 
led by an excessive love of simplicity, and have attempted 
to explain the phenomena from the smallest possible num- 
ber of data. Overlooking the real complication of our 
active principles, they have sometimes fixed on a single 
one, (good or bad, according as they were disposed to 
think well or ill of human nature,) and have deduced from 
it a plausible explanation of all the varieties of human 
character and conduct. 

* Treatise of Human JVature, Vol. I., Introduction. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

Our inquiries on this subject must be conducted in one 
of two ways, either by studying the characters of other 
men, or by studying our own. In the former way, we 
may undoubtedly collect many useful hints, and many facts 
to confirm or to limit our conclusions ; but the conjectures 
we form concerning the motives of others are hable to so 
much uncertainty, that it is chiefly by attending to what 
passes in our own minds that we can reasonably hope to 
ascertain the general laws of our constitution as active and 
moral beings. 

Even this plan of study, however, as I have already hint- 
ed, requires uncommon perseverance, and still more un- 
common candor. The difficulty is great of attending to any 
of the operations of the mind ; but this difiiculty is much 
increased in those cases in which we are led by vanity or 
timidity to fancy that we have an interest in concealing 
the truth from our own knowledge. 

Most men, perhaps, are disposed, in co'nsequence of 
these and some other causes, to believe themselves' better 
than they really are ; and a few, there is reason to "sus- 
pect, go into the opposite extreme, from the influence of 
false systems of philosophy or rehgion, or from the gloomy 
views inspired by a morbid melancholy. 

When to these considerations we add the endless meta- 
physical disputes on the subject of the will, and of man's 
free agency, it may easily be conceived that the field of 
inquiry upon which w^e are now to enter abounds w'ith 
questions not less curious and intricate than any of those 
which have been hitherto under our review. In point of 
practical importance some of them will be found in a still 
higher degree' entitled to our attention. 

IV. Division of the Active Principles.l In the further 
prosecution of this subject, I shall avoid, as much as pos- 
sible, all technical divisions and classifications, and shall 
content myself with the following enumeration of our 
Active Principles, which I hope will be found sufficiently 
distinct and comprehensive for our purposes. 

1. Appetites. 

2. Desires. 

3. Affections. 



introduction. m 

4. Self-love. 

5. The Moral Faculty. 

The first three may be distinguished (for a reason which 
will afterwards appear) by the title of Instinctive or 
Implanted Propensities ; the last two by the title of 
Rational and Governing Principles of Action.* 

* In the abovo enumeration I have departed widely from Dr. Reid's 
language. See his Essays on the Active Powers, Essay III., Parts I., II., 
and III. This great philosopher, witli whom I am always unwilling to 
differ, refers our active principles to three classes, the mechanical, the 
animal, and the rational ; using all these three words with what I think 
a very exceptionable latitude. On this occasion I shall only observe, that 
the word mechanical (under which he comprehends our instincts and 
habits) cannot, in my opinion, be properly applied to any of our active 
principles. It is indeed used, in this instance, merely as a term of dis- 
tinction ; but it seems to imply some theory concerning the nature of 
the principles comprehended under it, and is apt to suggest incorrect 
notions on the subject. 

If I had been disposed to examine this part of our constitution with 
all the minute accuracy of which it is susceptible, I should have pre- 
ferred the following arrangement to that which I have adopted, as well 
as to that proposed by Dr. Reid : — 1. Of our original principles of ac- 
tion. 2. Of our acquired principles of action. 

The original principles of action may be subdivided into the animal 
and the rational ; to the former of which classes our instincts ought un- 
doubtedly to be referred, as well as our appetites. In Dr. Reid's ar- 
rangement, nothing appears more unaccountable, if not capricious, than 
to call our appetites animal principles, because they are common to 
man and to the brutes ; and, at the same time, to distinguish our in- 
stincts by the title o^ mechanical ; — when, of all our active propensi- 
ties, there are none in which the nature of man bears so strong an 
analogy to that of the lower animals as in these instinctive impulses. 
Indeed, it is from the condition of the brutes that the word instinct is 
transferred to that of man by a sort of figure or metaphor. 

Our acquired principles of action comprehend all those propensities 
to act which we acquire from habit. Such are our artificial appetites 
and artificial desires, and the various factitious motives of human con- 
duct generated by association and fashion. 

At present, it being useless for any of the purposes which I have in 
view to attempt so comprehensive and detailed an examination of the 
subject, I shall confine myself to the general enumeration already men- 
tioned. As our appetites, our desires, and our affections, whether 
original or acquired, stand in the same common relation to the Moral 
Faculty (the illustration of which is the chief object of this volume), I 
purposely aToid those slighter and less important subdivisions which 
might be thought to savour unnecessarily of scholastic subtilty. 

[ For later classifications of our Active Principles, see Upham's 
Elements of Menial Philosophy, Vol. II., Introduction, Chap, ii., and 
Whewell's Elements of Morality, B. I. Chap, ii.] 



BOOK I. 

OF OUR INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF OUR APPETITES. 

I. Their JVature, Use, and Abuse.^ This class of our 
Active Principles is distinguished by the following cir- 
cumstances : — 

1. They take their rise from the body, and are com- 
mon to us with the brutes. 

2. They are not constant, but occasional. 

3. They are accompanied with an uneasy sensation, 
which is strong or weak in proportion to the strength or 
weakness of the appetite. 

Our appetites are three in number, hunger, thirst, and 
the appetite of sex. Of these, two were intended for 
the preservation of the individual ; the third for the con- 
tinuation of the species ; and without them reason would 
have been insufficient for these important purposes. Sup- 
pose, for example, that the appetite of hunger had been 
no part of our constitution, reason and experience might 
have satisfied us of the necessity of food to our preserva- 
tion ; but how should we have been able, without an im- 
planted principle, to ascertain, according to the varying 
state of our animal economy, the proper seasons for eat- 
ing, or the quantity of food that is salutary to the body .'' 
The lower animals not only receive this information from 
nature, but are, moreover, directed by instinct to the par- 
ticular sort of food that is proper for them to use in 
health and in sickness. The senses of taste and smell, 
in the savage state of our species, are subservient, at 
least in some degree, to the same purpose. 



APPETITES. 11 

Our appetites can, with no propriety, be called selfish, 
for they are directed to their respective objects as ultimate 
ends, and they must all have operated, in the first in- 
stance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising 
from their gratification. »^fter this experience, indeed, 
the desire of enjoyment will naturally come to be com- 
bined with the appetite ; and it may sometimes lead us to 
stimulate or provoke the appetite with a view to the pleas- 
ure which is to result from indulging it. Imagination, 
too, and the association of ideas, together with the social 
affections, and sometimes the moral faculty, lend their 
aid, and all conspire together in forming a complex pas- 
sion, in which the animal appetite is only one ingredient. 
In proportion as this passion is gratified, its influence over 
the conduct becomes the more irresistible, (for all the 
active determinations of our nature are strengthened by 
habit,) till at last we struggle in vain against its tyranny. 
A man so enslaved by his animal appetites exhibits human- 
ity in one of its most miserable and contemptible forms. 

As an additional proof of the misery of such a state, 
it is of great importance to remark, that, while habit 
strengthens all our active determinations, it diminishes the 
liveliness of our passive impressions ; — a remarkable 
instance of which occurs in the effects produced by an 
immoderate use of strong liquors, which, at the same 
time that it confirms the active habit of intemperance, 
deadens -and destroys the sensibility of the palate. In 
consequence of this law of our nature, the evils of exces- 
sive indulgence are doubled, inasmuch as our sensibility 
to pleasure decays in proportion as the cravings of appe- 
tite increase. 

In general, it will be found, that, wherever we attempt 
to enlarge the sphere of enjoyment beyond the limits pre- 
scribed by nature, we frustrate our own purpose. 

A man so enslaved by his appetites may undoubtedly, 
in one sense, be called selfish ; for, as he must necessarily 
neglect the duties he owes to others, he may be presumed 
to be deficient in the benevolent affections. But it cannot 
be said of him that he is actuated by an inordinate self- 
love, (meaning by that word an excessive regard for his 
own happiness,) for he sacrifices to the meanest gratifica- 



12 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

tions all the noblest pleasures of which he is susceptible, 
and sacrifices to the pleasure of the moment the perma- 
nent enjoyments of health, reputation, and conscience. 
This is true even when the desire of gratification is com- 
bined with the original appetite ; for no two principles 
can be more widely at variance than the desire of gratifi- 
cation and the desire of happiness. 

Of the errors introduced into morals, in consequence of 
the vague use of the words selfishness and self-love, I 
shall afterwards take notice. What 1 wish chiefly to re- 
mark at present is, that in no sense of these words can we 
refer to them the origin of our animal appetites ; and that 
the active propensities comprehended under this title are 
ultimate facts in the human constitution. 

II. Acquired Appetites.'] Besides our natural appetites 
we have many acquired ones. Such are our appetite for 
tobacco, for opium, and for other intoxicating drugs. In 
general, every thing that stimulates the nervous system 
produces a subsequent languor, which gives rise to a de- 
sire of repetition. 

The universality of this appetite for intoxicating drugs 
is a curious fact in the history of our species. " It seems," 
says Dr. Robertson, "to have been one of the first ex- 
ertions of human ingenuity to discover some composi- 
tion of an intoxicating quality ; and there is hardly any 
nation so rude, or so destitute of invention, as not to have 
succeeded in this fatal research. The most barbarous of 
the American tribes have been so unfortunate as to attain 
this art ; and even those who are so deficient in know^l- 
edge as to be unacquainted with the method of giving an 
inebriating strength to liquors by fermentation can accom- 
plish the same end by other means. The people of the 
islands of North America and of Cahfornia used for this 
purpose the smoke of tobacco, drawn up with a certain 
instrument into the nostrils, the fumes of which ascending 
to the brain, they felt all the transports and frenzy of in- 
toxication. In almost every part of the New World the 
natives possessed the art of extracting an intoxicating 
liquor from maize, or the manioc root, the same sub- 
stances which they convert into bread. The operation 



APPETITES. 13 

by which they effect this nearly resembles the common 
one of brewing, but with this difference, that, instead of 
yeast, they use a nauseous infusion of maize or manioc 
chewed by their women. The saliva excites a vigorous 
fermentation, and in a few days the liquor becomes fit for 
drinking. It is not disagreeable to the taste, and, when 
swallowed in large quantities, is of an inebriating quality. 
This is the general beverage of the Americans, which they 
distinguish by different names, and for which they feel 
such a violent and insatiable desire, as it is not easy either 
to conceive or describe." * 

Many striking confirmations of this remark occur in the 
voyages of Cook and of later navigators. 

III. Other analogous Propensities. 1 Our occasional 
propensities to action and to repose are, in many respects, 
analogous to our appetites. They have, indeed, all the 
three characteristics of our appetites already mentioned. 
They are common, too, to man and to the lower animals, 
and they operate, in our own species, in the most infant 
state of the individual. In general, every animal we know 
is prompted by an instinctive impulse to take that degree 
of exercise which is salutary to the body, and is prevent- 
ed from passing the bounds of moderation by that languor 
and desire of repose which are the consequences of con- 
tinued exertion. 

There is something, also, very similar to this with respect 
to the niind. We are impelled by nature to the exercise 
of its different faculties, and we are warned, when we are 
in danger of overstraining them, by a consciousness of 
fatigue. After we are exhausted by a long course of ap- 
plication to business, how delightful are the first moments 
of indolence and repose ! die hella cosa di far niente ! 
We are apt to imagine that no inducement shall again lead 
us to engage in the bustle of the world : but, after a short 
respite from our labors, our intellectual vigor returns ; 
the mind rouses from its lethargy "like a gjant from his 
sleep," and we feel ourselves urged by an irresistible in> 
pulse to return to our duties as members of society. 

* History of .America, Book IV. § 100. 

2 



14 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

The active principles already mentioned are common to 
man and to the brutes. But besides these, the latter have 
some instinctive impulses, of which I do not know that 
there are any traces to be found in the human race. Such 
are those antipathies which they discover against the natu- 
ral enemies of their respective tribes. It is probable, I 
think, that their existence is guarded entirely by their 
appetites and antipathies ; for the desire of self-preserva- 
tion implies a degree of reason and reflection which they 
do not appear to possess. Even in the case of man, this 
desire is probably the result of his experience of the 
pleasures which life affords ; and, accordingly, as Dr. 
Beatrie very finely remarks, Milton has, with exquisite 
judgment, represented Adam, in the first moments of his 
being, as contemplating, w-ithout anxiety or regret, the 
idea of immediate annihilation : — 

" While thus I called and strayed I knew not whither 
From where I first drew air, and first beheld 
This happy liglit, when answer none returned, 
On a green, shady bank profuse of flowers 
Pensive I sat me down. There gentle sleep 
First found me, and with soft oppression seized 
My drowzied sense ; untroubled, though I thought 
I then was passing to my former state 
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve." * 



CHAPTER II. 

OF OUR DESIRES. 



Our desires are distinguished from our appetites by 
the following circumstances : — 

1 . They do not take their rise from the body. 

2. They do not operate periodically after certain inter- 
vals, nor do they cease after the attainment of a particular 
object. 

* Paradise Lost, Book VIII. 283. 



DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 15 

The most remarkable active principles belonging to 
this class are, — 

1. The Desire of Knowledge, or the principle of 
Curiosity. 

2. The Desire of Society. 

3. The Desire of Esteem. 

4. The Desire of Power, or the principle of Am- 
bition. 

5. The Desire of Superiority, or the principle 
of Emulation. 



Section I. 

the desire of knowledge. 

I. Early and various Manifestations.'] The principle 
of curiosity appears in children at a very early period, and 
is commonly proportioned to the degree of intellectual 
capacity they possess. The direction, too, which it takes 
is regulated by nature according to the order of our wants 
and necessities ; being confined, in the first instance, ex- 
clusively to those properties of material objects, and those 
laws of the material world, an acquaintance with which 
is essential to the preservation of our animal existence. 
Hence the instinctive eagerness with which children handle 
and examine every thing which is presented to them ; an 
employment which we are commonly apt to consider as a 
mere exercise of their animal powers, but which, if we 
reflect on the limited province of sight prior to experience, 
and on the early period of life at which we are able to 
judge by the eye of the distances and of the tangible qual- 
ities of bodies, will appear plainly to be the most useful 
occupation in which tliey could be engaged, if it were in 
the power of a philosopher to have the regulation of their 
attention from the hour of their birth. In more advanced 
years curiosity displays itself in one way or another in 
every individual, and gives rise to an infinite diversity in 
their pursuits, — engrossing the attention of one man about 
physical causes, of another about mathematical truths, of 
a third about historical facts, of a fourth about the objects 
of natural history, of a fifth about the transactions of pri- 
vate families, or about the politics and news of the day. 



IG INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

Whether this diversity he owing to natural predisposi- 
tion, or to early education, it is of little consequence 
to determine, as, upon either supposition, a [)reparation is 
made for it in the original constitution of the mind, com- 
bined u'iih the circumstances of our external situation. Its 
final cause is also sufficiently obvious, as it is this which 
gives rise in the case of individuals to a limitation of atten- 
tion and study, and lays the foundation of all the advan- 
tages which society derives from the division and subdi- 
vision of intellectual labor. 

II. J^either Selfish nor Moral in itself.] These advan- 
tages are so great, that some philosophers have attempted 
to resolve the desire of knowledge into self-love. But to 
this theory the same objection may be slated which has 
already been made to the attempts of some philosophers to 
account, in a similar way, for the origin of our appetites ; 
— that all of these are active principles, manifestly directed 
by nature to particular specific objects, as their ultimate 
ends ; — that as the object of hunger is not happiness, but 
food, so the object of curiosity is not happiness, but knowl- 
edge. To this analogy Cicero has very beautifully alluded, 
when he calls knowledge the natural food of the under- 
standing. " Est animorum ingeniorumque nostrorum na- 
turale quoddam quasi pabulum consideratio contempla- 
tioque naturae." We can indeed conceive a being 
prompted merely by the cool desire of happiness to accu- 
mulate information ; but in a creature like man, endowed 
with a variety of other active principles, the stock of his 
knowledge would probably have been scanty, unless self- 
love had been aided in this particular by the principle of 
curiosity. 

Although, however, the desire of knowledge is not re- 
solvable into self-love, it is not in itself an object o^ moral 
approbation. A person may indeed employ his intel- 
lectual powers with a view to his own moral improve- 
ment, or to the happiness of society, and so far he acts 
from a laudable principle. But to prosecute study merely 
from the desire of knowledge is neither virtuous nor 
vicious. When not suffered to interfere with our duties 
it is morally innocent. The virtue or vice does not lie in 



DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 17 

the desire, but in the proper or improper regulation of it. 
The ancient astronomer who, when accused of indifference 
with respect to public transactions, answered that his 
country was in the heavens, acted criminally, inasmuch 
as he suffered his desire of knowledge to interfere with the 
duties which he owed to mankind. 

in. But superior in Dignity and Use to the Appetites.'] 
At the same time, it must be admitted that the desire of 
knowledge (and the same observation is applicable to our 
other desires) is of a more dignified nature than those 
appetites which are common to us wiih the brutes. A 
thirst for science has been always considered as a mark of 
a liberal and elevated mind ; and it generally cooperates 
with the moral faculty in forming us to those habits of self- 
government which enable us to keep our animal appetites 
in due subjection. 

There is another circumstance which renders this de- 
sire peculiarly estimable, that it is always accompanied 
with a strong desire to communicate our knowledge to 
others ; insomuch, that it has been doubted if the principle 
of curiosity would be sufficiently powerful to animate the 
intellectual exertions of any man in a- long course of per- 
severing study, if he had no prospect of being ever able 
to impart his acquisitions to his friends or to the public. 
"Si quis in coelum ascendisset," says Cicero, " natu- 
ramque mundi et pulchritudinem siderum perspexisset, in- 
suavem illam admirationem ei fore, quas jucundissima fuis- 
set, si aliquem cui narraret habuisset. Sic natura solita- 
rium nihil amat, semperque ad aliquod quasi adminiculum 
annititur, quod in amicissimo quoque dulcissimum est."* 
And to the same purpose Seneca : — "Nee me ulla res 
delectabit, licet eximia sit et salutaris, quam raihi uni 

* De ^micitia, 2S. Thus translated, or rather paraphrased, by Mel- 
moth: — '" Were a man to be cai-ried up to heaven, and the beauties of 
universal nature dis;played to his view, he would receive but little 
pleasure from the wonderful scene, if there were none to whom he 
might relate the glories he had beheld. Human nature, indeed, is so 
constituted as to be incapable of lonely satisfaction : man, like those 
plants which are formed to embrace others, is led by an instinctive im- 
pulse to recline on his species; and he finds his happiest and most se- 
cure support in the arms of a faithful friend." 

2* 



18 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

sciturus sim. Si cum hac exceptlone delur sapientia, ui 
illam inclusam teneani, nee enunciem, rejiciam: nuUius 
boni, sine socio, jucunda possessio est." * 

A strong curiosity, properly directed, may be justly con- 
sidered as one of tbe most important elements in pbilosoph- 
ical genius ; and, accordingly, there is no circumstance 
of greater consequence in education than to keep the cu- 
riosity always awake, and to turn it to useful pursuits. I 
cannot help, therefore, disapproving greatly of a very com- 
mon practice in this country, that of communicating to 
children general and superficial views of science and his- 
tory by means of popular introductions. In this way we 
rob their future studies of all that interest which can 
render study agreeable, and reduce the mind, in the pur- 
suits of science, to the same state of listlessness and lan- 
guor as when we toil through the pages of a tedious novel 
after being made acquainted with the final catastrophe. 

It would contribute greatly to the culture and the guid- 
ance of this principle of curiosity, if the different sciences 
were taught as much as possible in the order of the ana- 
lytic rather than in that of the synthetic method ;t a plan, 
however, which I readily admit it is not so practicable to 
carry into effect in a course of public as of private instruc- 
tion. Such a mode of education, too, would be attended 
with the additional advantage of accustoming the student 
to the proper method of investigation ; and thereby pre- 
paring him in due lime to enter on the career of invention 
and discovery. Nor is this all. It would impress the 
knowledge he thus acquired, in some measure by his own 
ingenuity, much more deeply on his memory than if it 
were passively imbibed from books or teachers ; — in the 
same manner as the windings of a road make a more last- 
ing impression on the mind when we have once travelled 

* Seneca, Epist. VI. " Nor, indeed, would any thing give me pleasure, 
however excellent and salutary it might be, were I to keep the knowl- 
edge of it to myself. Were wisdom offered me under such restriction 
as to be obliged to conceal it, I would reject it. No enjoyment what- 
ever can be agreeable without participation." 

t Analytically we discover, by a sort of decomposition, the simple 
laws which are concerned in the phenomenon under consideration ; 
siinthetically, taking the laws for granted, we determine a priori what 
the result will be of any hypothetical combination of them. — Ed. 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 19 

it alone, and inquired out the way at every turn, than if 
we had travelled along it a hundred times trusting our- 
selves implicitly to the guidance of a companion. 

I am happy to be confirmed in this opinion by its coin- 
cidence with what has been excellently remarked on the 
same subject by Miss Edgevvorth, in her treatise on Prac- 
tical Education ; a work equally distinguished by good 
sense and by originality of thought. The passage 1 allude 
to more particularly at present is the short dialogue about 
the steam-engine, as improved by Mr. Watt.* 

Section IT. 

THE desire of SOCIETY. 

I. An Instinctive Principle. 1^ Abstracted from those 
affections which interest us in the happiness of others, 
and from all the advantages which we ourselves derive 
from the social union, we are led by a natural and instinc- 
tive desire to associate with our species. This principle 
is easily discernible in the minds of children long before 
the dawn of reason. " Attend only," says an intelligent 
and accurate observer, "to the eyes, the features, and 
the gestures of a child on the breast when another child is 
presented to it ; — both instantly, previous to the possi- 
bility of instruction or habit, exhibit the most evident ex- 
pressions of joy. Their eyes sparkle, and their features 
and gestures demonstrate, in the most unequivocal manner, 
a mutual attachment. When further advanced, children 
who are strangers to each other, though their social appe- 
tite be equally strong, discover a mutual shyness of ap- 
proach, which, however, is soon conquered by the more 
powerful instinct of association." f 

In the lower animals, too, very evident traces of the same 
instinct appear. In some of these we observe a species 
of union strikingly analogous to political associations among 
men : in others we observe occasional unions among indi- 
viduals to accomplish a particular purpose, — to repel, for 

* Essays on Practical Education^ Chap. xxi. 

t Smeliie's Philosophy of .Xatural Histortj, Chap. xi. 



20 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

example, a hostile assault ; — but there are also various 
tribes which discover a desire of society, and a pleasure 
in the company of their own species, without an apparent 
reference to any further end. Thus we frequently see 
horses, when confined alone in an inclosure, neglect their 
food and break the fences to join their companions in the 
contiguous field. Every person must have remarked the 
spirit and alacrity with which this animal exerts himself on 
the road, when accompanied by another animal of his own 
species, in comparison of what he discovers when travel- 
ling alone; and, with respect to oxen and cows, it has 
been asserted, that even in the finest pasture they do not 
fatten so rapidly in a solitary state as when they feed to- 
gether in a herd.* 

What is the final cause of the associating instinct in 
such animals as have now been mentioned it is not easy 
to conjecture, unless we suppose that it was intended 
merely to augment the sum of their enjoyments. But 
whatever opinion we may form on this point, it is indis- 
putable that the instinctive determination is a strong one, 
and that it produces striking effects on the habits of the 
animal, even when external circumstances are the most 
unfavorable to its operation. Horses and oxen, for- ex- 
ample, when deprived of companions of their own species, 
associate and become attached to each other. The same 
thing sometimes happens between individuals that belong 
to tribes naturally hostile ; as between dogs and cats, or 
between a cat and a bird. 

If these facts be candidly considered, there will appear 
but little reason to doubt the existence of the social instinct 
in our own species, when it is so agreeable to the general 
analogy of nature, as displayed through the rest of the 
animal creation. As this point, however, has been con- 
troverted warmly by authors of eminence, it will be ne- 
cessary to consider it with some attention. 

II. The Theory of Hobbes stated and refuted.l '^^^^ 
question whh respect to the social or the soHtary nature 

* One of the best accounts of the social principle in animals is found 
in Swainson's Habits and Instincts of .Animals, Cfhapters IX. and X. — 
Ed. 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 21 

of man seems to me to amount to this, whether man has 
any disinterested principles which lead him to unite with 
his fellow-creatures ; or whether the social Union be the 
result of prudential views of self-interest, suggested by 
the experience of his own insufficiency to procure the 
objects of his natural desires. Of these two opinions, 
Hobbes has maintained the latter, and has endeavoured to 
establish it by proving, that, in what he calls J.he state of 
nature, every man is an enemy to his brother, and that it 
was the experience of the evils arising from these hostile 
dispositions that induced men to unite in a political society. 
In proof of this he insists on the terror which children 
feel at the sight of a stranger ; on the apprehension which, 
he says, a person naturally feels when he hears the tread 
of a foot in the dark ; on the universal invention of locks 
and keys ; and on various other circumstances of a similar 
nature.* 

That this theory of Hobbes is contrary to the universal 
history of mankind cannot be disputed. Man has always 
been found in a social state ; and there is reason even for 
thinking, that the principles of union which nature has im- 
planted in his heart operate with the greatest force in 
those situations in which the advantages of the social union 
are the smallest. As society advances, the relations 
among individuals are continually multiplied, and man is 
rendered the more necessary to man : but it may be 
doubted, if, in a period of great refinement, the social 
affections be as warm and powerful as when the species 
were wandering in the forest. 

Besides, it does not seem to be easy to conceive in 
what manner Hobbes's supposition could be realized. 
Surely, if there be a foundation for any thing laid in the 
constitution of man's nature, it is for family union. The 
infant of our species continues longer in a helpless state, 
and requires longer the protecting care of both parents, 
than the young of any other animal. Before the first 
child is able to provide for itself, a second and a third are 
produced, and thus the union of the sexes, supposing it at 
first to have been merely casual, is insensibly confirmed 

* Leviathan, P. I. Chap. xiii. De Corpore Politico, P. I. Chap, i. 



22 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

by habit, and cemented by the common interest which 
both parents take in their offspring. So just is the simple 
and beautiful statement of the fact given by Montesquieu, 
that " man is born in society, and there he remains." 

From these considerations, it appears that the social 
union does not take its rise from views of self-interest, but 
that it forms a necessary part of the condition of man from 
the constitution of his nature. It is true, indeed, that 
before he begins to reflect he finds himself connected with 
society by a thousand ties ; so that, independently of any 
social instinct, prudence would undoubtedly prevent him 
from abandoning his fellow-creatures. But still it is evi- 
dent that the social instinct forms a part of human nature, 
and has a tendency to unite men even when they stand in 
no need of each other's assistance. Were the case other- 
wise, prudence and the social disposition would be only 
different names for the same principle, whereas it is matter 
of common remark, that although the two principles be by 
no means inconsistent when kept within reasonable bounds, 
yet that the former, when it rises to any excess, is in a 
great measure exclusive of the latter. I have hinted, too, 
already, that it is in societies where individuals are iTiost 
independent of each other as to their animal wants, that 
the social principles operate with the greatest force. 

III. The Wants and JYecessities of JSIan help to de- 
velop^ hut do not create^ his Social Principles.'\ Accord- 
ing to the view of the subject now given, the multiplied 
wants and necessities of man in his infant state, by laying 
the foundation of the family union, impose tipon our 
species, as a necessary part of their condition", those 
social connections which are so essential to our improve- 
ment and happiness. And therefore nothing could be 
more unphilosophical than the complaints which the an- 
cient Epicureans founded upon this circumstance, and 
which Lucretius has so pathetically expressed in the fol- 
lowing verses : — 

" Turn porro puer, ut saevis projectiis ab undis 
Navita, nudus humi jacet, infans, indigus omni 
Vitali auxilio, cuin primum in luminis oras 
Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit : 



DESIRE OF SOCIETT. 23 

Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut eequum est, 
Cui tantum in vitd restat transire malorum." * 

The philosophy of Pope is in this respect much more 
pleasing and much more solid : — 

" Heaven, forming each on other to depend, 
A master, or a servant, or a friend, 
Bids each on other for assistance call. 
Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally 
The common interest, or endear the tie. 
To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here." f 

The considerations now stated afford a beautiful illus- 
tration of the beneficent design with which the physical 
condition of man is adapted to the principles of his moral 
constitution ; an adaptation so striking, that it is not sur- 
prising those philosophers who are fond of simplifying the 
theory of human nature should have attempted to account 
for the origin of these principles from the habits which our 
external circumstances impose. In this, as in many other 
instances, their attention has been misled by the spirit of 
system from those wonderful combinations of means to 
particular ends, which are everywhere conspicuous in the 
universe. It is not by the physical condition of man that 
the essential principles of his mind are formed ; but the 
. one is fitted to the other by the same superintending wis- 
dom which adapts the fin of the fish to the water, and the 
wing of the bird to the air, and which scatters the seeds 
of the vegetable tribes in those soils and exposures where 
they are fitted to vegetate. It is not the wants and neces- 
sities of his animal being which create his social princi- 
ples, and which produce an artificial and interested league 
among individuals who are naturally solitary and hostile ; 

* Lib. V. 223. 

" As when wild, wrecking tempests sweep the skies, 
Cast on the shore the naked sailor lies; 
So the weak infant, when he springs to light. 
Thrown on the strand of life in helpless plight. 
With mournful cries the joyful mansion fills, 
The unheeded omens of a life of ills." 

t Essay on Man, Ep. II. 249. See on this subject The Moralists of 
Lord Shaftesbury. 



24 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

but, determined by instinct to society, endowed witli in- 
numerable principles which have a reference to Ims feliow"- 
creatures, he is placed by the condition of his birih in that 
element where alone the perfection and happiness of his 
nature are to be found. 

IV. Manh Jfature adjusted beforehand to the Condi- 
tion in ivhich he is placed.] In speaking of the lower ani- 
mals, I before observed, that such of them as are instinc- 
tively social discover the secret workings of nature even 
when removed from the society of their kind. This fact 
amounts in their case to a demonstration of that mutual 
adaptation of the different parts of nature to each other 
which J have just remarked. It demonstrates that the 
structure of their internal frame is purposely adjusted to 
that external scene in which they .are destined to be 
placed. As the lamb, when it strikes with its forehead 
while yet unarmed, proves that it is not its weapons which 
determine its instincts, but that it has preexistent instincts 
suited to its weapons, so when we see an animal deprived 
of the sight of his fellows cling to a stranger, or disarm, 
by his caresses, the rage of an enemy, we perceive the 
workings of a social instinct, not only not superinduced 
by external circumstances, but manifesting itself in spite 
of circumstances which are adverse to its operation. The 
same remark may be extended to man. When in soli- 
tude, he languishes, and, by making companions of the 
lower animals, or by attaching himself to inanimate ob- 
jects, strives to fill up the void of which he is conscious. 
" Were I in a desert," says an author, who, amidst all 
his extravagances and absurdities, sometimes writes like a 
wise man, and, where the moral feelings are at all con- 
cerned, never fails to write like a good man, — " were I 
in a desert, I would find out wherewith in it to call forth 
my affections. If I could not do better, I would fasten 
them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy 
cypress to connect myself to ; I would court their shade, 
and greet them kindly for their protection. I would cut 
my name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest 
trees throughout the desert. If their leaves withered, I 
would teach myself to mourn, and when they rejoiced, I 
would rejoice along wilh them." 



DESIRE OF SOCIETY. 25 

, The Count de Lauzun was confined by Louis XTV. 
for nine years in the castle of Pignerol, in a small room 
where no light could enter but from a chink in the roof. 
In this solitude he attached himself to a spider, and con- 
trived for some time to amuse himself with attempting to 
tame it, with catching flies for its support, and with super- 
intending the, progress of its web. The jailer discovered 
his amusement, and killed the spider ; and the Count used 
afterwards to declare, that the pang he felt on the occa- 
sion could be compared only to that of a mother for the 
loss of a child. 

This anecdote is quoted by Lord Karnes in his 
Sketches, and by the late Lord Auckland in his Princi- 
pks of Penal Law. It is remarkable that both these 
learned and respectable writers should have introduced it 
into their works on account of the shocking incident of 
the jailer, and as a proof of the pure and unprovoked 
malice of which some minds are capable, without taking 
any notice of it as a beautiful picture of the feelings of a 
man of sensibility in a state of solitude, and of his dispo- 
sition to create to himself some object upon which he may 
rest those affections which have a reference to society. 

It will be said that these are the feelings of one who 
has experienced the pleasures of social life, and that no 
inference can be drawn from such facts in opposition to 
Hobbes. But if they do not prove in man an instinctive 
impulse towards society prior to experience, they at least 
prove that he feels a delight in the society of his fellow- 
creatures, which no view of self-interest is sufficient to 
explain. 

It does not belong to our present speculation to illus- 
trate the importance of the social union to our improve- 
ment and our happiness. Its subserviency to both (ab- 
stracted entirely from its necessity for the complete grati- 
fication of our physical wan<s) is much greater than we 
should be disposed at first to apprehend. In proof of 
this, it is sufficient to mention here its connection with the 
culture of our intellectual faculties, and with the develop- 
ment of our moral principles. Illustrations of this may be 
drawn from the low state in which both these parts of our 
nature are generally found in the deaf and dumb, and from 
3 



26 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

the effects which a few months' education sometimes has 
in unfolding their mental powers. The pleasing change 
which in the mean time takes place in their once vacant 
countenances, when animated and lighted up by an active 
and inquisitive mind, cannot escape the notice of the most 
careless observer.* 



Section III. 

THE DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 

I. An Original Principle of our Jfature.'] This prin- 
ciple, as well as those we have now been considering, 
discovers itself at a very early period in infants, who, 
long before they are able to reflect on the advantages re- 
sulting from the good opinion of others, and even before 
they acquire the use of speech, are sensibly mortified by 
any expression of neglect or contempt. It seems, there- 
fore, to be an original principle of our nature; that is, it 
does not appear to be resolvable into reason and experi- 
ence, or into any other principle more general than itself. 
An additional proof of this is the very powerful influence 

* For an additional illustration of the same thing, see a remarkable 
case of recovery from deafness and dumbness in the history of the 
Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris for the year 1703. 

A doctrine similar to that which I have now been controverting, con- 
cerning the origin of society, was maintained by some of the ancient 
sophists, and has found advocates in every age among those writers 
who wished to depreciate human nature, as well as among many who 
were anxious to represent man as entirely the creature of education and 
government, with tlie view of inculcating implicit and passive obedi- 
ence to the civil magistrate. In Buchanan's elegant and philosophical 
Dialogue De Jure Reuni a-pvrl Scotos, the question is particularly dis- 
cussed between the two interlocutors, one of whom ascribes the origin 
of society to views of utility, meaning by vtility the private interest or 
advantage of the individual. On the contrary, Buchanan himself, who 
is the other speaker, contends with great warmth for the existence of 
social principles in the nature of man, which, independently of any 
views of interest, lay a foundation for tlie social union. 

Part of this Dialogue is curious, as it shows how completely Bu- 
chanan had not only anticipated, but refuted, the very far-fetched argu- 
ment which Hobbes was soon after to draw from his supposed state of 
nature in support of his slavish maxims of government. 

[See the subject of man's natural sociality still further illustrated, 
in connection with experiments in prison discipline. De Beaumont 
and De Tocqueville's Peniteiitiary System of the United States. F. C. 
Gray's Prison Discipline of America. 



DESIRE or ESTEEM. 27 

it has over the mind, — an influence more striking than 
that of any other active principle whatsoever. Even the 
love of life daily gives way to the desire of esteem, and of 
an esteem which, as it is only to affect our memories, can- 
not be supposed to interest our self-love. In what man- 
ner the association of ideas should manufacture, out of 
the other principles of our constitution, a new principle 
stronger than them all, it is difficult to conceive. 

In these observations I have had an eye to the theories 
of those modern philosophers who represent self-love, or 
the desire of happiness, as the only original principle of 
action in man, and who attempt to account for the origin 
of all our other active principles from habit or the associa- 
tion of ideas. That this theory is just in some instances 
cannot be disputed. Thus, in the case of avarice^ it is 
manifest that it is from habit alone it derives its influence 
over the mind ; for no man surely was ever brought into 
the world with an innate love of money. Money is at first 
desired, merely as the means of obtaining other objects ; 
but, in consequence of being long and constantly accustom- 
ed to direct our efforts to its attainment on account of its 
apprehended utility, we come at last to pursue it as an 
ultimate end, and frequently retain our attachment to it 
long after we have lost all relish for the enjoyments it en- 
„able3 us to command. In like manner, it has been sup- 
posed that the esteem of our fellow-creatures is at first 
desired on account of its apprehended utility, and that it 
comes in time to be pursued as an ultimate end, without 
any reference on our part to the advantages it bestows. 
In opposition to this doctrine it seems to me to be clear, 
that as the object of hunger is not happiness, but food ; as 
the object of curiosity is not happiness, but knowledge ; so 
the object of this principle of action is not happiness, but 
the esteem and respect of other men. That this is not 
inconsistent with the analogy of our nature appears from 
the observations already made on our appetites and de- 
sires ; and that it really is the fact may be proved by 
various arguments. Before touching, however, on these, 
1 must remark, that I consider this as merely a question 
of speculative curiosity ; for, upon either supposition, the 
desire of esteem is equally the work of nature ; and con- 



28 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

sequently, upon either supposition, it is equally unphilo- 
sophical to attempt, by metaphysical subtilties, to counter- 
act her wise and beneficent purposes. 

Among the different arguments which concur to prove 
that the desire of esteem is not wholly resolvable into the 
association of ideas, one of the strongest has already been 
hinted at, — the early period of life at which this principle 
discovers itself, — long before we are able to form the idea 
of happiness^ far less to judge of the circumstances which 
have a tendency to promote it. The difference in this 
respect between avarice and the desire of esteem is re- 
markable. The former is the vice of old age, and is, 
comparatively speaking, confined to a few. The latter is 
one of the most powerful engines in the education of 
children, and is not less universal in its influence than the 
principle of curiosity. 

II. The Desire of Posthumous Fame represented by 
Wollaston as Illusory.] The desire, too, of posthu- 
mous fame, of which no man can entirely divest himself, 
furnishes an insurmountable objection to the theories al- 
ready mentioned. It is, indeed, an objection so obvious 
to the common sense of mankind, that all the philosophers 
who have leaned to these theories have employed their 
ingenuity in attempting to resolve this desire into an illu- 
sion of the imagination produced by habit. This, too, 
was the opinion of an excellent writer, and still more ex- 
cellent man, Mr. Wollaston, who, from a well-meant, but 
very mistaken, zeal to weaken the influence of this princi- 
ple of action on human conduct, has been at pains to give 
as ludicrous an account as possible of its origin. As 1 
differ widely from Wollaston on this point, both in his 
theoretical speculations and in the practical inferences he 
deduces from them, I shall quote the passage at length, 
and then subjoin a few remarks on it. 

" Men please themselves with notions of immortality, 
and fancy a perpetuity of fame secured to themselves by 
books and testimonies of historians ; but alas ! it is a 
stupid delusion when they imagine themselves present and 
enjoying that fame at the reading of their story after their 
death. And beside, in reality, the man is not known ever 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 29 

the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to 
them. He doth not live,, because his name does. When 
it is said, ' .Julius Cssar subdued Gaul, beat Pompey, 
and changed the Roman commonwealth into a monarchy,' 
it is the same thing as to say, - The conqueror of Pompey 
was Csesar'; that is, Caesar and the conqueror of Pompey 
are the same thing, and Csesar is as much known by the 
one designation as by the other. The amount, then, is only 
this, that the conqueror of Pompey conquered Pompey, 
or somebody conquered Pompey ; or rather, since Pom- 
pey is now as little known as Ceesar, somebody conquered 
somebody. Such a poor business is this boasted immor- 
tality ; and such as has been described is the thing called 
glory among us i The notion of it may serve to excite 
them who, having abilities to serve their country in time of 
real danger or want, or to do some other good, have yet 
not philosophy enough to do this upon principles of virtue, 
or to see through the glories of the world (just as we ex- 
cite children by praising them, and as we see many good 
inventions and improvements proceed from emulation and 
vanity) ; but to discerning men this fame is m«re air, and 
the next remove from nothing, which they despise, if not 
shun. I think there are two considerations which may 
justify a desire of some glory or honor, and scarce more. 
When men have performed any virtuous actions, or such 
as sit easy on their memories, it is a reasonable pleasure 
to have the testimony of the world added to that of their 
own consciences, that they have done well. And more 
than that, if the reputation acquired by any qualification 
or action may • produce a man any real comfort or ad- 
vantage (if it be only protection from the insolence and 
injustice of mankind, or if it enables him, by his authority, 
to do more good to others), to have this privilege must be a 
great satisfaction, and what a wise and good man may be al- 
lowed, as he has opportunity, to propose to himself. But 
then he proposes it no further than it may be useful, and it 
can be no further useful than he wants it. So that, upon 
the whole, glory, praise, and the like, are either mere van- 
ity, or only valuable in proportion to defects and wants." * 

* Wollaston's Religion of Nutur& Delineated, Sect V. § xix. A 

3* 



30 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

It appears from this passage, that Wollastoii does not 
consider the desire of" posthumous fame as an uhimate fact 
in our nature, for he proposes a theory to account for it. 

thouglit substantially the same with that of Wollaston occurs in Cow- 
ley's ode entitled Life arid Fame. 

" Great Csfisar's self a higher place does claim 
In the seraphic entity of fame. 

He, since that toy, his death, 

Doth fill each mouth and breath. 
'T is true, the two immortal syllables remain ; 
But, O )"e learned men, explain. 
What essence — substance — what hypostasis 

In five poor letters is? 
In those alone does the great Cassar live. 
'T is all the conquered world could give." 

Notwithstanding the merit of these lines, I should hardly have 
thought It worth while to quote them, if Dr. tTurd (a critic of no com- 
mon ingenuity as well as learning) had not shown, by his comment 
upon them, how completely he had misapprehended the reasoning both 
of the poet and of the philosopher. He remarks : — 

" This lively ridicule on posthumous fame is well enough placed in 
a poem or declamation ; but we are a little surprised to find so grave a 
writer as Wollaston diverting himself with it. ' In reality,' says he, 
' the man is not known ever the more to posterity because his name 
is transmitted to them. He does not live, because his ?iame does.' 
When it is said, ' Julius Casar subdued Gaul,' &c., &c., the sophistry 
is apparent. Put Cato in the place of Caesar, and then see whether that 
great man do not live in his name substa?itiaUy, that is, to good purpose, 
if the impression which these two inimortal syllables make on tlie mind 
be of use in exciting posterity, or any one man, to the love and imita- 
tion of Cato's virtue." — Hurd's Cowley, Vol I. p. 179. 

In this remark, Hurd plainly proceeds on the supposition, that Wol- 
laston's sophistry is directed against the utility of the love of posthumous 
glory, whereas the only point in dispute relates to the origin of this 
principle, which Wollaston seems to have thought, if it could not be 
resolved into the rational motive of self-love, must be the illegitimate 
and contemptible oflspring of our own stupidity and folly. 

How very different must Cowley's feelings have been when he wrote 
the metaphysical ode referred to by Hurd, from those which inspired 
that first burst of juvenile emotion which forms the exordium to his 
Poetical Works! 

" What shall I do to be for ever known, 
And make the age to come my own .' 
I shall, like beasts or common people, die, 
Unless you write my elegy. 

What sound is "t strikes mine car ? 
Sure I fame's trumpet hear. 
It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can 
Raise up the buried man." 



I>ESIRE OF ESTEEM. 31 

" It is," says he, " a stupid delusion, when men imagine 
themselves present and enjoying that fame at the read- 
ing of their story after death." Mr. Smith, too, in his 
Theory of Moral Sentiments, seems to think that the 
desire of a posthumous fame is to be resolvable into an 
illusion of the imagination. "Men," says he, "have 
often voluntarily thrown away life to acquire after death a 
renown which they could no longer enjoy. Their imagi- 
nation, in the mean time, anticipated that fame which was 
thereafter to be bestowed upon them. Those applauses 
which they were never to hear rung in their ears ; the 
thoughts of that admiration whose effects they were never 
to feel played about their hearts, banished from their 
breasts the strongest of ail natural fears, and transported 
them to perform actions which seem almost beyond the 
reach of human nature."* But why have recourse to 
an illusion of the imagination to account for a principle 
which the wisest of men find it impossible to extinguish in 
themselves, or even sensibly to weaken ; and none more 
remarkably than some of those who have employed their 
ingenuity in attempting to turn it into ridicule ? Is it 
possible that men should imagine themselves present and 
enjoying their fame at the reading of their story after 
death, without being conscious of this operation of the 
imagination themselves ? Is not this to depart from the 
plain and obvious appearance of the fact, and to adopt 
refinements simila'r to those by which the selfish philoso- 
phers explain away all our disinterested affections ? We 
might as well suppose that a man's regard for the welfare 
of his posterity and friends after his death does not arise 
from natural affection, but from an illusion of the imagina- 
tion, leading him to suppose himself still present with 
them, and a witness of their prosperity, f If we have 

* Part III. Chap. ii. 

t The two cases seem to be so exactly parallel, that it is somewhat 
surprising that no attempt should have been made to extend to the 
latter principle of action the same ridicule which has been so lavishly 
bestowed on the former. So far, however, from this being the case, I 
believe it will be universally granted, that where the latter principle 
fails in producing its natural and ordinary effect on the conduct, there 
must exist some defect in the rational or moral character, for which no 
other good qualities can sufficiently atone. " He that careth not for 



32 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

confessedly various other propensities directed to specific 
objects as ultimate ends, where is the difficulty of con- 
ceiving that a desire, directed to the good opinion of our 
fellow-creatures (without any reference to the advantages 
it is to yield us either now or hereafter), may be among 
the number ? 

III. Vindication of this Principle.] It would not, in- 
deed, (as I have already hinted,) materially affect the argu- 
ment, although we should suppose, with Wollaslon, that 
the desire of posthumous fame was resolvable into an 
illusion of the imagination. For, whatever be its origin, 
it was plainly the intention of nature that all men should 
be in some measure under its influence ; and it is perhaps 
of little consequence whether we regard it as a principle 
originally implanted by nature, or suppose that she has laid 
a foundation for it in other principles which belong univer- 
sally to the species. 

Hov/ very powerfully it operates appears, not only 
from the heroical sacrifices to which it has led in every 
age of the world, but from the conduct of the meanest and 
most worthless of mankind, who, when they are brought 
to the scaffold in consequence of the clearest and most 
decisive evidence of their guilt, frequently persevere to 
the last, with the terrors of futurity full in their view, in 
the most solemn protestations of their innocence ; and 
that merely in the hope of leaving behind them, not a fair, 
but an equivocal or problematical reputation. 

With respect to the other parts of Wollaston's reason- 
ing, that it is only the letters which compose our names 
that we can transmit to posterity, it is worthy of observa- 
tion, that, if the argument be good for any thing, it applies 
equally against the desire of esteem from our contempo- 
raries, excepting in those cases in which we ourselves are 

his own house is worse than an infidel." But if this be acknowledged 
with respect to the interest we take in the concerns of onr connections 
after our own disappearance from the present scene, wliy judge so 
harslily of the desire of posthumous fame ? Do not the two principles 
often cooperate in stimulating our active exertions to the very same 
ends, more especially in those cases (alas ! too common) where the 
inheritance of a respectable name is all that a good man has it in his 
power to bequeathe to his family ? 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 33 

personally known by those whose praise we covet, and of 
whose applause we happen ourselves to. be ear-witnesses. 
And yet, undoubtedly, according to the common judg- 
ment of mankind, the love of praise is more peculiarly the 
mark of a liberal and elevated spirit in cases where the 
gratification it seeks has nothing to recommend it to those 
whose ruling passions are interest or the love of flattery.* 
It is precisely for the same reason that the love of posthu- 
mous fame is strongest in the noblest and most exalted 
characters. If self-love were really the sole motive in all 
our actions, Wollaston's reasoning would prove clearly 
the absurdity of any concern about our memory. Such a 
concern, as Dr. Hutcheson observes, " no selfish being, 
who had the modelling of his own nature, would choose to 
implant in himself. But, since we have not this power, 
we must be contented to be thus outicitted by nature into 
a public interest against our will.^^ f 

As to the fact on which Wollaston's argument proceeds, 
is it not more philosophical to consider it as affording an 
additional stimulus to the instinctive love of posthumous 
fame, by holding it up to the imagination as the noblest 
and proudest boast of human ambition, to be able to entail 
on the casual combination of letters which compose our 
name the respect of distant ages, and the blessings of 
generations yet unborn .'' Nor is it an unworthy object of 
the most rational benevolence to render these letters a 
sort of magical spell for kindling the emulation of the wise 
and good wherever they shall reach the human ear. 

Nor is it only in this instance that nature has " thus 
outwitted us " for her own wise and salutary purposes. 

* That the desire of esteem, if a fantastic principle of action in the 
one of these cases, is equally so in the other, is remarked by Pope; but, 
instead of availing himself of this consideration to justify the desire of 
posthumous renown, he employs it as an argument to expose the noth- 
ingness of fame in all cases whatsoever. 

"What 's fame? a fancied life in others' breath, 
A thing beyond us even before our death. 
All that we feel of it begins and ends 
In the small circle of our foes and friends ; 
To all beside as much an empty shade 
An Eugene living, as a Casar dead." 

Essay on Man, Epistle IV. ^37. 
t Nature and Conduct of the Passions, Sect. I. Art. IV. 



34 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

By a mode of reasoning analogous to that of Wollaston, 
it would be easy to turn most, if not all, our active princi- 
ples into ridicule. But what should we gain by the 
attempt, but a ludicrous exposition of that moral consti- 
tution which it has pleased our Maker to give us, and 
which, the more we study it, will be found to abound the 
more with marks of wise and beneficent design ? 

It is fortunate, in such cases, that, although the reason- 
ings of the metaphysician may puzzle the understanding, 
they produce very little effect on the conduct. He may 
tell us, for example, that the admiration of female beauty 
is absurd, because beauty^ as well as color ^ is a quality 
not existing in the object, but in the mind of the spec- 
tator ; or (which brings the case still nearer to that under 
our consideration) he may allege that the whole charm of 
the finest countenance would vanish if it were examined 
with the aid of a microscope. In all such cases, as well 
as in the instance referred to by Wollaston, we are deter- 
mined very powerfully by nature ; in a way, indeed, that 
our reason cannot explain, but which we never fail to find 
subservient to valuable ends. For I am far from thinking 
that it would be of advantage to mankind if Wollaston's 
views were generally adopted. That the love of glory 
has sometimes covered the earth with desolation and 
bloodshed I am ready to grant ; but the actions to which 
it generally prompts are highly serviceable to the world. 
Indeed, it is only by such actions that an enviable fame is 
to be acquired. 

A strong conviction of this truth has led Dr. Akenside 
to express himself in one of his odes with a warmth which 
passes, perhaps, the bounds of strict propriety, but for 
which a sufficient apology may be found in the poetical 
enthusiasm by which it was inspired. The ode is said 
to have been occasioned by a sermon against the love 
of glory. 

" Come, then, tell me, sage divine, 

Is it an offence to own 

That our bosoms e'er incline 

Towards immortal glory's throne.' 

For with me nor pomp nor pleasure, 

Bourbon's might, Braganza's treasure. 

So can fancjr's dream rejoice. 

So conciliate reason's choice, 
As one approving word of her impartial voice. 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 35 

" If to spurn at noble praise 

Be the passport to thy heaven, 

Follow thou these gloomy ways ; 

J\o such Jaw to me was given : 

Nor, I trust, shall I deplore me 

Faring like my friends before me, 

Nor a holier heaven desire 

Than Tiraoleon's arms acquire, 
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre." 

Having mentioned the name of Milton, I cannot forbear 
to add, that he too has called the love of fame an infirmity, 
although he has qualified this implied censure by calling it 
the '■'•infirmity of a noble mind.'''' He has distinctly 
acknowledged, at the same time, the heroic sacrifices of 
ease and pleasure to which it has prompted the most dis- 
tinguished benefactors of the human race. 

" Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(The last infirmity of noble minds) 
To scorn delights and live laborious days." 

IV. Hume''s Theory respecting its Origin.'] I must 
not dismiss this subject without taking some notice of a 
theory started by Mr. Hume with respect to the origin of 
the love of praise ; a theory which applies to this passion 
even when it has for its object the praise of our contempo- 
raries. "Of all opinions," he observes, " those which 
we form in our own favor, however lofty and presuming, 
are at bottom the frailest, and the most easily shaken by 
the contradiction and opposition of others. Our great 
concern in this case makes us soon alarmed, and keeps 
our passions upon the watch ; our consciousness of par- 
tiality still makes us dread a mistake ; and the very dif- 
ficulty of judging concerning an object which is never set 
at a due distance from us, nor is seen in a proper point of 
view, makes us hearken anxiously to the opinion of others 
who are better qualified to form opinions concerning us. 
Hence that strong love of fame with which all mankind are 
possessed. It is in order to fix and confirm their favora- 
ble opinion of themselves, not from any original passion., 
that they seek the applause of others."* 

I think it cannot be doubted that the circumstance here 

* Dissertation on the Passions, Sect. II. § 10. 



ob INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

mentioned by Mr. Hunne adds greatly to the pleasure ue 
derive from the possession of esteem ; but it sufficiently 
appears from the facts already stated, particularly from the 
early period of life at which this principle makes its ap- 
pearance, that there is a satisfaction arising from the pos- 
session of esteem perfectly unconnected with the cause 
referred to by this author. IMr. Hume has therefore mis- 
taken a concomitant effect for the cause of the phenomenon 
in question. 

In remarking, however, this concomitant effect, he 
must be allowed to have called our attention to a fact of 
some importance in the philosophy of the human mind, 
and which ought not to be overlooked in analyzing the 
compounded sentiment of satisfaction we derive from the 
good opinion of others. Nor is this the only accessory 
circumstance that enhances the pleasure resulting from the 
gratification of the original principle. If in those cases 
where we are somewhat doubtful of the propriety of our 
own conduct we are anxious to have in our favor the 
sanction of public opinion, so, on the other hand, when 
we are satisfied in our own minds that our conduct has 
been right, part of the pleasure we receive from esteem 
arises from observing the just views and candid disposi- 
tions of others. Nor is it less indisputable, on the con- 
trary supposition, that when, in consequence of calumny 
and misrepresentation, we fail in obtaining that esteem to 
W'hich we know ourselves to be entitled, our disappointment 
at missing our just reward is aggravated, to a wonderful 
degree, by our sorrow for the injustice and ingratitude of 
mankind. Still, however, it must be remembered that 
these are only ' accessor!/ circumstances, and that there is 
a pleasure resulting from the possession of esteem which 
is not resolvable into either of them, and which appears to 
be an ultimate fact in the constitution of our nature. 

V. Incidental Benefits resulting from the Love of 
jPrtme.] From the passage formerly quoted from Wol- 
laston it appears that he apprehended the love of fame to 
be justifiable only in tico cases. The one is, when we 
desire it as a confirmation of the rectitude of our own 
judgments ; the other, when the possession of it can be 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 37 

attended with some real and solid good. But why, I must 
again repeat, offer any apology for our obeying a natural 
principle of our constitution, so long as we preserve it 
under due regulation ? 

It is not unworthy of remark, that this principle is one 
of those with which our fellow-creatures are most dis- 
posed to sympathize. With what indignation do we hear 
the slightest reflection cast on the memory of one who 
was dear to us, and how sacred do we feel the duty of 
coming forward in his defence ! Nor is this sympathy 
confined to ^he circle of our acquaintance. It embraces 
the wise and good of the most remote ages, and prompts 
us irresistibly to protect their fame from the assaults of 
envy and detraction. Whatever theory philosophers may 
adopt as to the origin of this sympathy, its utility in 
preserving immaculate the reputation of those ornaments 
of humanity whom mankind look up to as models for 
imitation is equally indisputable. 

I have already said that the desire of esteem is, on the 
whole, a useful principle of action ; for, although there 
are many cases in which the public opinion is erroneous 
and corrupted, there are many more in which it is agreea- 
ble to reason, and favorable to the interests of virtue and 
of mankind. The habits, therefore, which this principle 
of action has a tendency to form are likely, in most 
instances, to coincide with those which are recommended 
by a sense of duty. In many men, accordingly, who are 
very little influenced by higher principles, a regard to the 
opinion of the world (or, as we commonly express it, a 
regard to character) produces a conduct honorable to 
themselves and beneficial to society. 

To this observation it may be added, that the habits to 
which we are trained by the desire of esteem render the 
acquisition of virtuous habits more easy. The desire of 
esteem operates in children before they have a capacity to 
distinguish right from wrong ; or at least the former prin- 
ciple of action is much more powerful in their case than 
the latter. Hence it furnishes a most useful and effectual 
engine in the business of education, more particularly by 
training us early to exertions of self-command and self- 
denial. It teaches us, for example, to restrain our appe- 
4 



38 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

tites within those bounds which decency prescribes, and 
thus forms us to habits of moderation and temperance. 
And although our conduct cannot be denominated virtuous 
so long as a regard to the opinion of others is our only 
motive, yet the habits we thus acquire in infancy and child- 
hood render it more easy for us to subject our passions to 
the authority of reason and conscience as we advance to 
maturity. " In that young man," said Sylla, speaking of 
Caesar, " who walks the streets with so little regard to 
modesty, I foresee many Mariuses." His idea probably 
was, that on a temper so completely divested of sympathy 
with the feelings of others society could lay little hold, 
and that whatever principle of action should happen to 
gain the ascendant in his mind was likely to sacrifice to its 
own gratification the restraints both of honor and of duty. 

VI. Adam Smith confounds Desire of Esteem icith the 
Moral Motive.'] These, and some other considerations 
of the same kind, have struck Mr. Smith so forcibly, that 
he has been led to resolve our sense of duty into a regard 
to the good opinion, and a desire to obtain the sympathy^ 
of our fellow-creatures. I shall afterwards have occasion 
to examine the principal arguments he alleges in support 
of his conclusions. At present I shall only remark, that, 
although his theory may account for the desire which all 
men, both good and bad, have to assume the appearance 
of virtue, it never can explain the origin of our notions of 
duty and of moral obligation. One striking proof of this 
is, that the love of fame can only be completely gratified 
by the actual possession of those qualities for which we 
wish to be esteemed ; and that, when we receive praises 
which we know we do not deserve, we are conscious of a 
sort of fraud or imposition on the world. 

" All fame is foreign but of true desert, — 
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart." 

In further confirmation of the same doctrine it may be 
observed, that, although the desire of esteem is often a 
useful auxiliary to our sense of duly, and although, in most 
of our good actions, the two principles are perhaps more 
or less blended together, yet the merit of virtuous con- 



DESIRE OF ESTEEM. 39 

duct is always enhanced, in the opinion of mankind, when 
it is discovered in the more private situations of hfe, where 
the individual cannot be suspected of any views to the 
applauses of the world. Even Cicero, in whose mind 
vanity had at least its due sway, has borne testimony to 
this truth : — " Mihi quidem laudabiliora videntur omnia, 
quse sine venditatione et sine populo teste fiunt : non quo 
fugiendus sit (omnia enim benefacta in luce se collocari 
volunt) sed tamen nullum theatrum virtuti conscientia 
majus est." * So far, therefore, are the desire of esteem 



* Tusc. Disp., Lib. II. 26. " Besides, to me, indeed, every thing 
seems the more commendable, the less the people are courted, and the 
fewer eyes there are to see it. Not that observation is to be avoided, 
for every generous action loves the public view ; still, there is no theatre 
for virtue like the witness of a good conscience." The same remark is 
made by Pliny in one of his epistles, Lib. III. Epist. XVI., where it 
is illustrated by one of the most beautiful anecdotes recorded in the 
annals of our species. Although no English version can possibly do 
justice to the conciseness and spirit of Pliny's own language, I shall, for 
the sake of my unlearned readers, quote the anecdote referred to above, 
in the admirable translation of Mr. Mel moth. 

"I have frequently observed, that, amongst the noble actions and re- 
markable sayings of distinguished persons in either sex, those which 
have been most celebrated have not always been the most illustrious; 
and I am confirmed in this opinion by a conversation I had yesterday 
with Fannia. This lady is granddaughter to that celebrated Arria 
who animated her husband to meet death by her own glorious example. 
She informed me of several particulars relating to Arria, not less hero- 
ical than this famous action of hers, though less taken notice of, which, 
I am persuaded, will raise your admiration as much as they did mine. 
Her husband, Ccecinna Pretus, and his son, were both at the same time 
attacked with a dangerous illness, of which the son died. This youth, 
who had a most beautiful person and amiable behaviour, was not less 
endeared to his parents by his virtues than by the ties of affection. 
His mother managed his funeral so privately, that Paetus did not know 
of his death. Whenever she came to his bed-chamber she pretended 
her son was better; and, as often as he inquired after his health, would 
answer that he had rested well, or had eat with an appetite. When 
she found she could no longer restrain her grief, but her tears were 
gushing out, she would leave the room, and, having given vent to her 
passion, return again with dry eyes, as if she had dismissed every 
sentiment of sorrow at her entrance. The action was no doubt truly 
noble, when, drawing the dagger, she plunged it in her breast, and then 
presented it to her husband, with that ever memorable, I had almost 
said divine expression, — '■Pmtus, it is not painful.' It must, however, be 
considered that when she spoke and acted thus she had the prospect of 
immortal glory before her eyes to encourage and support her. But was 
it not something much greater, without the view of such powerful 
motives, to hide her tears, to conceal her grief, and cheerfully seem the 
mother when she was so no more ^ " 



40 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

and the sense of duty from being radically the same prin- 
ciple of action, that the former is only an auxiliary to the 
latter, and is always understood to diminish the merit of 
the agent in proportion to the influence it had over his 
determinations. 

An additional proof of this may be derived from the 
miserable effects produced on the conduct by the desire 
of fame, when it is the sole, or even the governing, prin- 
ciple of our actions. In this case, indeed, it seldom 
fails to disappoint its own purposes, for a lasting fame is 
scarcely to be acquired without a steady and consistent 
conduct, and such a conduct can only arise from a con- 
scientious regard to the suggestions of our own breasts. 
The pleasure, therefore, which a being capable of reflec- 
tion derives from the possession of fame, so far from being 
the original motive to worthy actions, presupposes the 
existence of other and of nobler motives in the mind. 

Nor is this all ; when a competition happens between 
the desire of fame and a regard to duty, if we sacrifice 
the latter to the former we are filled with remorse and 
self-condemnation, and the applauses of the world afford 
us but an empty and unsatisfactory recompense ; whereas 
a steady adherence to the right, even although it should 
accidentally expose us to calumny, never fails to be its 
own reward. Whether, therefore, we regard our lasting 
happiness or our lasting fame, the precept of Cicero is 
equally deserving of our attention. 

" Neither make it your study to secure the applauses of 
the vulgar, nor rest your hopes of happiness on rewards 
which men can bestow. Let virtue, by her own native 
attractions, allure you in the paths of honor. What 
others may say of you is their concern, not yours ; nor is 
it worth your while to be out of humor for the topics 
which your conduct may supply to their conversation." — 
" Neque sermonibus vulgi dederis te, nee in praemiis 
humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum ; suis te oportet 
illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus. Quid de te 
alii loquantur, ipsi videant : sed loquentur tamen."* 

* Somn. Scipionis. 



DESIRE OF POWER. 41 



Section IV. 



THE DESIRE OF POWER. 



I. Early Manifestations of this Principle.'] The man- 
ner in which the idea of poioer is at first introduced into 
the mind has been long a perplexing subject of speculation 
to metaphysicians, and has given rise to some of the 
most subtile disquisitions of the human understanding. 
But, although it be difficult to explain its origin, the idea 
itself is familiar to the most illiterate, even at the earliest 
period of life ; and the desire of possessing the corre- 
sponding object seems to be one of the strongest principles 
of human conduct. 

In general, it may be observed, that, wherever we are 
led to consider ourselves as the authors of any effect, we 
feel a sensible pride or exultation in the consciousness of 
poicer, and the pleasure is in general proportioned to the 
greatness of the effect, compared with the smallness of 
our exertion. 

What is commonly called the pleasure of activity is in 
truth the pleasure of poioer. Mere exercise, which pro- 
duces no sensible effect, is attended with no enjoyment, 
or a very slight one. The enjoyment, such as it is, is 
only corporeal. 

The infant, while still on the breast, delights in exerting 
its little strength on every object it meets with, and is 
morfified when any accident convinces it of its own imbe- 
cility. The pastimes of the boy are almost, without excep- 
tion, such as suggest to him the idea of his power. When 
he throws a stone, or shoots an arrow, he is pleased with 
being able to produce an effect at a distance from himself ; 
and, while he measures with his eye the amplitude or 
range of his missile weapon, contemplates with satisfaction 
the extent to which bis power has reached. It is on a 
similar principle that he loves to bring his strength into 
comparison with that of his fellows, and to enjoy the con- 
sciousness of superior prowess. Nor need we search in 
. the malevolent dispositions of our nature for any other 
motive to the apparent acts of cruelty which he sometimes 
4* 



42 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.. 

exercises over the inferior animals, — the sufferings of 
the animal, in such cases, either entirely escaping his 
notice, or being overlooked in that state of pleasurable 
triumph which the wanton abuse of poxoer communicates 
to a weak and unreflecting judgment. The active sports 
of the youth qaptivate his fancy by suggesting similar 
ideas, — of strength of body, of force of mind, of con- 
tempt of hardship and of danger. And accordingly such 
are the occupations in which Virgil, with a characteristical 
propriety, employs his young Ascanius. 

"At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acri 
Gaudet equo ; jamque hos cursu, jam praeterit illos ; 
Spumantemque dari pecora inter inertia votis 
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descenders monte leoneui.'"* 

II. Increases our Desire of Knoioledge in after Life.] 
As we advance in years, and as our animal powers lose 
their activity and vigor, we gradually aim at extending 
our influence over others by the superiority of fortune and 
station, or by the still more flattering superiority of intel- 
lectual endowments, by the force of our understanding, by 
the extent of our information, by the arts of persuasion, 
or the accomplishments of address. What but the idea 
of power pleases the orator in managing the reins of an 
assembled multitude, when he silences the reason of others 
by superior ingenuity, bends to his purposes their desires 
and passions, and, without the aid of force or the splendor 
of rank, becomes the arbiter of the fate of nations ! 

To the same principle we may trace, in part, the pleas- 
ure arising from the discovery of general theorems in the 
sciences. Every such discovery puts us in possession of 
innumerable particular truths or particular facts, and gives 
us a ready command of a great stock of knowledge, of 

* JEneid, Lib. IV. 15G. 

"While there, exulting, to his utmost speed 
The young Ascanius spurs his fiery steed, 
Outstrips by turns the flying social train. 
And scorns the meaner triumphs of the plain : 
The hopes of glory all his soul inflame ; 
Eager he longs to run at nobler game, 
And drench his youthful javelin in the gore 
Of the fierce lion, or the mountain boar." 



DESIRE OF POWER. 43 

which we could not, with equal ease, avail ourselves 
before. It increases, in a word, our intellectual poioer in 
a way very analogous to that in which a machine or engine 
increases the mechanical power of the human body. 

The discoveries we make in natural philosophy have, 
beside this effect, a tendency to enlarge the sphere of our 
power over the material universe ; first, by enabling us to 
accommodate our conduct to the established course of 
physical events; and secondly, by enabling us to call to 
our aid many natural powers or agents as instruments for 
the accomplishment of our purposes. 

In general, every discovery we make with respect to 
the laws of nature, either in the material or moral worlds, 
is an, accession of power to the human mind, inasmuch as 
it lays the foundation of prudent and effectual conduct in 
circumstances where, without the same means of informa- 
tion, the success of our proceedings must have depended 
on chance alone. The desire of power ^ therefore, comes, 
in the progress of reason and experience, to act as an 
auxiliary to our instinctive desire of knowledge ; and it is 
with a view to strengthen and cdnfirm this alliance that 
Bacon so often repeats his favorite maxim, that knowledge 
and power are synonymous or identical terms. 

III. Other Passions resolvable, in part at least, into 
the Desire of Poiver.] The idea of power is, partly at 
least, the foundation of our attachment to property. It is 
not enough for us to have the me of an object. We 
desire to have it completely at our own disposal, without 
being responsible to any person whatsoever for the pur- 
poses to which we may choose to turn it. " There is an 
unspeakable pleasure," says Addison, " in calling any 
thing one's own. A freehold, though it be but in ice and 
snow, will make the owner pleased in the possession and 
stout in the defence of it." 

Avarice is a particular modification of the desire of 
poioer, arising from the various functionss of money in a 
commercial country. Its influence as an active principle 
is greatly strengthened by habit and association, insomuch 
that the original desire of power is frequently lost in the 
acquired propensities to which it gives birth ', the posses- 



44 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

sion of money becoming, in process of time, an ultimate 
object of pursuit, and continuing to stimulate the activity 
of the mind after it has lost a relish for every other species 
of exertion.* 

The love of liberty proceeds in part, if not wholly, 
from the same source ; from a desire of being able to do 
whatever is agreeable to our own inclination. Slavery 
mortifies us, because it limits our power. 

Even the love of tranquillity and retirement has been 
resolved by Cicero into the desire of power. " Multi 
autem et sunt et fuerunt, qui cam, quam dico, tranquilli- 
tatem expetentes, a negotiis publicis se removerint, ad 

otiumque perfugerint His idem propositum fuit 

quod regibus, ut ne qua re egerent, ne cui parerent, liber- 
tate uterentur ; cujus proprium est sic vivere ut velis. 
Quare, cum hoc commune sit potentisecupidorum cum lis 
quos dixi otiosis ; alteri se adipisci id posse arbitrantur, 
si opes magnas habeant, alteri, si contenti sint et suo, et 
parvo."f 

The idea of power is also, in some degree, the founda- 
tion of the pleasure of virtue. We love to be at liberty 
to follow our own inclinations, without being subject to 
the control of a superior ; but even this is not sufficient to 
our happiness. When we are led by vicious habits, or 



* Berkeley in his Querist has started the same idea. 

"Whether the real end and aim of men be not poicer? and whether 
he who could have every thing else at his wish or will would value 
money?" 

To this query the good Bishop has subjoined another, which one 
would hardly have expected from a writer so zealousl}- attached to Tory 
and High-Church principles. 

" Whether the public aim in every well-governed state be not, that 
each member, according to his just pretensions and industry, should 
have POWER ? " 

JVaturam- expellas furcd, tamen usque recurret. 

t De Off., Lib. I. 20, 21. "Now there have been and are many 
who have withdrawn from public business, and sought in retirement 
the tranquillity of which I am speaking. , These men have proposed to 
themselves the same end with kings ; namely, that thc}' may need 
nothing, be subject to no one, and enjoy freedom, the leading privilege 
of which is to live as you please. They, therefiire, who aspire after 
power have this in common with those who court retirement, that the 
former think they are able to attain the same object by the possession 
of a vast fortune which the other look for in contentment with their 
present means, however humble." 



DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 45 

by the force of passion, to do what reason disapproves, 
we are sensible of a mortifying subjection to the inferior 
principles of our nature, and feel our own littleness and 
weakness. On the other hand, he that ruleth his spirit 
feels himself greater than he that taketh a city. "It is 
pleasant," says Dr. Tillotson, " to be virtuous and good, 
because that is to excel many others. It is pleasant to 
grow better, because that is to excel ourselves. It is 
pleasant to mortify and subdue our appetites, because that 
is victory. It is pleasant to command our passions, and 
keep them within the bounds of reason, because this is 
empire." 

From the observations now made, it appears that the 
desire of power is subservient to important purposes in 
our constitution, and is one of the principal sources both 
of our intellectual and moral improvements. An exami- 
nation of the effects which it produces on society would 
open views very strikingly illustrative of benevolent inten- 
tion in the Author of our frame. I shall content myself, 
however, with remarking, that the general aspect of the 
fact affords a very favorable view of human nature. When 
we consider how much more every man has it in his 
power to injure others than to promote their interests, it 
must appear manifest that society could not possibly sub- 
sist unless the benevolent affections had a very decided 
predominance over those principles which give rise to 
competition and enmity. Whoever reflects duly on this 
consideration will, if I do not deceive myself, be inclined 
to form conclusions concerning the dispositions of his fel- 
low-creatures very different from the representations of 
them to be found in the writings of some gloomy and mis- 
anthropical moralists.* 

Section V. 

EMULATION, OR THE DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 

I. J^ot a JMalevolent Affection.'] This principle of 
action is classed by Dr. Reid with the affections, and is 

* On ambition see Lieber, Political Eihics^^Book III. Chap.iv. — Ed. 



46 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

considered by him as a malevolent affection.* He lells 
us, however, that he does not mean by this epithet to 
insinuate that there is any thing criminal in emulation any 
more than in resentment when excited by an injury ; but 
he thinks that it involves a sentiment of ill-will to our 
rival, and makes use of the word malevolent to express 
this sentiment, as the language affords no softer epithet to 
convey the idea. 

I own it appears to me that emulation, considered as a 
principle of action, ought to be classed with the desires^ 
and not with the affections. It is, indeed, frequently ac- 
companied with a malevolent affection ; but it is the desire 
of superiority which is the active principle, and the affec- 
tion is only a concomitant circumstance. 

I do not even think that this malevolent affection is a 
necessary concomitant of the desire of superiority. It is 
possible, surely, to conceive (although the case may hap- 
pen but rarely) that emulation may take place between 
men who are united by the most cordial friendship, and 
without a single sentiment of ill-will disturbing their har- 
mony. 

II. Distinction between Emulation and Envy.'] When 
emulation is accompanied with malevolent affection, it 
assumes the name of envy. The distinction between 
these two principles of action is accurately stated by Dr. 
Buder. "Emulation is merely the desire of superiority 
over others, with whom we compare ourselves. To de- 
sire the attainment of this superiority by the particular 
means of others being brought down below our own level 
is the distinct notion of envy. From whence it is easy to 
see, that the real end wdiich the natural passion, emulation, 
and which the unlawful one, envy, aims at is exactly the 
same ; and, consequently, that to do mischief is not the 
end of envy, but merely the means it makes use of to 
attain its end." f Dr. Reid himself seems to have clearly 
perceived the distinction, although in other parts of the 
same section he has lost sight of it again. " He w^ho runs 

* Essays on the Active Powpjs, Ess. III. P. II. Chap. v. 
t Sermon I., On Human JVature. 



DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 47 

a race," says he, " feels uneasiness at seeing another out- 
strip him. This is uncorrupted nature, and the work of 
God within him. But this uneasiness may produce either 
of two very different effects. It may incite him to make 
more vigorous exertions, and to strain every nerve to get 
before his rival. This is fair and honest emulation. This 
is the effect it is intended to produce. But if he has not 
fairness and candor of heart, he will look with an evil eye 
on his competitor, and will endeavour to trip him, or to 
throw a stumbling-block in his way. This is pure envy, 
the most malignant passion that can lodge in the human 
breast, which devours, as its natural food, the fame and 
the happiness of those who are most deserving of our 
esteem." * 

In quoting these passages, I would not be understood 
to represent this distinction between emulation and envy 
as a novelty in the science of ethics ; for the very same 
distinction was long ago stated with admirable conciseness 
and justness by Aristotle ; whose definitions, (I shall take 
this opportunity of remarking by the way,) however cen- 
surable they may frequently be when they relate to physical 
subjects, are, in most instances, peculiarly happy when 
they relate to moraZ ideas. "iEmulatio bonum quiddam 
est, et bonis viris convenit ; at invidere improbum est, et 
hominum improborum ; nam semulans talem efficere se 

* Reid,' On the jJctive Poivers, Essay III. P. 11. Chap. t. Dr. 
Beattie, in his Elements of Moral Science, after stating very correctly 
the speculative distinction between emulation and envy, observes with 
great truth, that it is extremely difficult to preserve the former wholly 
unmixed with the latter, and that emulation, though entirely different 
from envy," is very apt, through the weakness of our nature, to degen- 
erate into it. To this remark he subjoins the following very striking 
practical reflection. " Let the man," says he, " who thinks he is ac- 
tuated by generous emulation only, and wishes to know whether there 
be any thing of envy in the case, examine his own heart, and ask him- 
self whether his friends, on becoming, though in an honorable way, his 
competitors, have less of his affection than they had before ; whether he 
be gratified by hearing them depreciated ; whether he would wish 
their merit less, that he might the more easily equal or excel them; and 
whether he would have a more sincere regard for them if the world 
were to acknowledge him their superior. If his heart answer all or 
any of these questions in the affirmative, it is time to look out for a 
cure, for the symptoms of envy are but too apparent." Part I. Chap. 
ii. § 5. 



48 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

studet, ut ipsa bona quoque nanciscatur ; at invidens 
studet efficere, ut ne alter boni quid habeat."* 

Before leaving the subject, I think it of consequence 
again to repeat, that, notwithstanding the speculative dis- 
tinction I have been endeavourifig to make between 
emulation and envy, the former disposition is so seldom 
altogether unmixed with the latter, that men who are 
conscious of possessing original powers of thinking can 
scarcely be at too much pains to draw a veil over their 
claims to originality, if they wish to employ their talents 
to the best advantage in the service of mankind. 

" Men must be taught as if you taught them not, 
And things unknown proposed as things forgot." t 

In the observations which I have hitherto made upon 
emulation, I have proceeded on the supposition, that the 
subject of competition is the personal qualities of the indi- 
vidual. These, however, are not the great objects of 
ambition with the bulk of mankind, nor perhaps do they 
occasion jealousies and enmities so fatal to our morals 
and our happiness, as those which are occasioned by the 
seemingly partial and unjust distribution of the goods of 
fortune. To see the natural rewards of industry and 
genius fall to the share of the weak and the profligate can 
scarcely fail to excite a regret in the best regulated tem- 
pers ; and to those who are disposed (as every man per- 
haps is in some degree) to overrate their own pretensions, 
and to undervalue those of their neighbours, this regret is a 
source of discontent and misery, which no measure of ex- 
ternal prosperity is sufficient to remove. The feeling, 
when it does not lead to any act of injustice or dishonor, 
is so intimately connected with our sense of merit and 
demerit, that many allowances for it will be made by those 
who reflect candidly on the common infirmities of humani- 
ty ; and much indulgence is due from the prosperous to 
their less fortunate rivals. So much, indeed, is this in- 

* Aristot., Rhetor., Lib. II. Cap. xi. The whole chapter is excellent. 
I have adopted in the text the Latin version of Buhle. " Emulation 
is a good thing and belongs to good men; envy is bad, and belongs to 
bad men. What a man is emulous of he strives to attain, that he may 
really possess the desired object; the envious are satisfied if nobody 
has it.' 

t Pope's Essay on Criticism, 1. 574. 



DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY. 49 

dulgence recommended to us by all the best principles of 
our nature, and so painful is the reflection that we are even 
the innocent cause of disquiet to others, that it may be 
doubted whether the constraint and embarrassment pro- 
duced by great and sudden accessions of prosperity be 
not more than sufficient to counterbalance any solid addi- 
tion they are likely to bring to our own happiness.* 

III. The Desire to excel a universal Passion.'] 
Among the lower animals we see many symptoms of em- 

* The following admirable passage is from Smith's Theory of t/ic 
Moral Sentiments, Fart 1. Sect. 11. Chap. v. : — " The man who, by some 
sudden revokition of fortune, is lifted up all at once into a condition of 
life greatly above what he had formerly lived in, may be assured that 
the congratulations of his best friends are not all of them perfectly sin- 
cere. An upstart, though of the greatest merit, is generally disagreea- 
ble, and a sentiment of envy commonly prevents us from heartily 
sympathizing with his joy. If he has any judgment, he is sensible of 
this, and, instead of appearing to be elated with his good fortune, he 
endeavours, as much as he can, to smother his joy, and keep down that 
elevation of mind with which his new circumstances naturally inspire 
him. He affects the same plainness of dress, and the same modesty of 
behaviour, which became him in his former station. He redoubles his 
attentions to his old friends, and endeavours more than ever to be hum- 
ble, assiduous, and complaisant. And this is the behaviour which in his 
situation we most approve of; because we expect, it seems, that he 
should have more sympathy with our envy and aversion to his happi- 
ness than we have to his happiness. It is seldom that, with all this, he 
succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his humility, and lie grows wearv 
of this constraint. In a little time, therefore, he generally leaves all 
his old friends behind him, some of the meanest of them excepted, who 
may, perhaps, condescend to become his dependents : nor does he 
always acquire any new ones ; the pride of his new connections is as 
much affronted at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had 
been by his becoming their superior; and it requires the most obstinate 
and persevering rriodesty to atone for this mortification to either. He 
generally grows weary too soon, and is provoked, by the sullen and 
suspicious pride of the one, and by the saucy contempt of the other, to 
treat the first with neglect and the second with petulance, till at last he 
grows habitually insolent, and forfeits the esteem of all. If the chief 
part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved, 
as I believe it does, these sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute 
much to happiness. He is happiest who advances more gradually to 
greatness, whom the public destines to every step of his preferment 
long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that account, when it comes, 
it can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to whom it cannot 
reasonably create either any jealousy in those he overtakes, or any 
envy in those he leaves behind." 

In Bacon's Essays there is an article on Envy, abounding with origi- 
nal, and, in the main, just reflections. Even those which are somewhat 
questionable may be useful in suggesting materials of thought to others. 

5 



50 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

ulation, but in them its effects are perfectly insignificant 
when compared with those it produces on human conduct. 
Their emulation is chiefly confined to swiftness,* strength, 
or favor widi their females. I think, too, among dogs we 
may perceive something like jealousy or rivalship in court- 
ing the favor of man. In our own race emulation operates 
in an infinite variety of directions, and is one of the princi- 
pal sources of human improvement. 

Human life has been often likened to a race, and the 
parallel holds, not only in the general resemblance, but in 
many of the minuter circumstances. When the horses 
first start from the barrier, how easy and sportive are 
their sallies, — sometimes one taking the lead, sometimes 
another ! If they happen to run abreast, their contiguity 
seems only the effect of the social instinct. In propor- 
tion, however, as they advance in their career, the spirit 
of emulation becomes gradually more apparent, till at 
length, as they draw near to the goal, every sinew and 
every nerve is strained to the utmost, and it is well if the 
competition closes without some suspicion of jostling and 
foul play on the part of the winner. 

How exact and melancholy a picture of the race of am- 
bition ; of the insensible and almost inevitable effect of 
political rivalship in extinguishing early friendships ; and 
of the increasing eagerness with which men continue to 
grasp at the palm of victory till the fatal moment arrives 
when it is to drop from their hands for ever ! 



Artificial Desires.] As we have artificial appetites, so 
we have also artificial desires. Whatever conduces to 
the attainment of any object of natural desire is itself 
desired on account of its subservience to this end, and 
frequently comes in process of time to be regarded as val- 
uable in itself, independent of this subservience. It is 

* One of the most remarkable instances of tliis that I have read of 
is tiie emulation of the race-horses at Rome when run without riders. 
This emulation is even said to be inspirited by the concourse of spec- 
tators. — See Observations made in a Tour to Italy, by the celebrated M. 
de la Condamine. 



ARTIFICIAL DESIRES. 51 

thus (as was formerly observed) that weahh becomes with 
many an uhimate object of desire, although it is undoubt- 
edly valued at first merely on account of its subservience 
to the attainment of other objects. In like manner we 
are led to desire dress, equipage, retinue, furniture, on 
account of the estimation in which they are supposed to 
be held by the public. Dr. Hutcheson calls such desires 
secondary desires, and accounts for their origin in the way 
I have now mentioned. " Since we are capable," says 
he, " of reflection, memory, observation, and reasoning 
about the distant tendencies of objects and actions, and 
not confined to things present, there must arise, in conse- 
quence of our original desires, secondary desires of every 
thing imagined to be useful to gratify any of the primary 
desires, and that with strength proportioned to the several 
original desires, and the imagined usefulness or necessity 
of the advantageous object." — " Thus," he continues, 
"as soon as we come to apprehend the use of wealth or 
power to gratify any of our original desires we must also 
desire them. Hence arises the universality of the desires 
of luealth and power, since they are the means of gratify- 
ing all other desires." * The only thing exceptionable in 
the foregoing passage is, that the author classes the desire 
of power with that of wealth ; whereas I apprehend it to 
be clear, according to Hutcheson's own definition, that 
the former is a primary desire, and the latter a secondary 
one. Avarice, indeed, (as I have already remarked,) is but 
a particular modification of the desire of power generated 
by the conventional value which attaches to money in the 
progress of society, in consequence of which it becomes 
the immediate and the habitual object of pursuit in all the 
various departments of professional industry. 

The author, also, of the Preliminary Dissertation prefixed 
to King's Origin of Evil attempts to explain, by means 
of the association of ideas, the origin, not only of avarice, 
but of the desire of knowledge and of the desire of fame, 
both of which I have endeavoured to show, in the preced- 
ing pages, are justly entitled to rank with the primary and 
most simple elements of our active constitution. That 

* Nature and Conduct of the Passions, Sect. I. Art. II. 



52 INSTINCTIVE PHINCIPLE5 OF ACTION. 

they, as well as all the other original principles of our 
nature, are very powerfully influenced by association and 
habit, is a point about which there can be no dispute ; and 
hence arises the plausibility of those theories which would 
represent them as wholly factitious.* 

* Dr. Hartley's once celebrated work, entitled Observations on Man, 
in wiiicli he has pushed the theory of association to so extravagant a 
length, and which, not many years ago, found so many enthusiastic ad- 
mirers in England, seems to have owed its existence to the dissertation 
here referred to. 

"The work here offered to the public," he tells us himself in his 
preface, "consists of papers written at different times, but taking their 
rise from the following occasion. 

"About eighteen years ago I was informed that the Rev. Mr. Gay, 
tiien living, asserted the possibility of deducing all our intellectual 
pleasures and pains from association. Tliis put me upon considering 
the power of association. Mr. Gay published his sentiments on this 
matter, about the same time, in a Dissertation on the Fundnmental Prin- 
ciple of Virtue, prefixed to Mr. Archdeacon Law's Translation of Arch- 
bishop King's Origin of Evil." 

[ Mr. Stewart speaks with too much confidence of the waning in- 
fluence of the "once celebrated work" of Hartley. Since he wrote 
this note, one of the ablest defences of the Hartleian view has appeared 
in the Analysis of the Human Mind, by James Mill. 

Most writers, holding with Stewart to a plurality of elementary de- 
sires, differ from him in making the desire of property and the desire 
of self-preservation to be of this number. See Upham's Mental Pki- 
losopliij, Vol H. Part I. Chap, iv., and Whewell's Elements of Morality, 
Book 1. Chap. ii. On the desire of property, consult Lieber's Political 
Ethics, Book H. Chap, ii., and Illustrations of the Passions, Vol. I. Chap. 
V. Also the phrenologists, and particularly Gall. 

On the other hand, the author of the article Desir in the Dictionnaire 
des Sciences Philosophiques reduces them to three, curiosity, ambition, 
and sympathy. This writer observes: — "The mind always knows, 
more or less, that wliich it desires; reason illuminates what sensibility 
pursues. JMalebranche gave the saying of the poet, fgnoti nulla, cnpido, 
under a philosophical form of expression, when he defined desire to be 
' the idea of a good which a man possesses not, but hopes to possess.' 
Desire is distinguished by tJiis from the blind tendency which urges 
every being towards its end, whether it knows it or not. It is a spon- 
taneous movement of nature transformed by intelligence, and consti- 
tutes, therefore, a phenomenon which cannot take place except among 
intelligent beings. A stone bus \ts affinities ; a brute has its i7istiticts ; 
man alone has his desires, because he alone has received the gift of 
thought." 

Consult, also, on the subjects treated of in this chapter and the 
following, Gibon, fours de Philosophic, P I. Chap. ix. ; Bautain, Phi- 
iosophie Morale, Partie Psycholosique, Chap iv. ; Dr. Wliewcll's edi- 
tion of Butler's Three Sermons on Human jYatare : with a Preface and 
Notes.] 



BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 53 

CHAPTER III. 

OF OUR AFFECTIONS. 

Section L 
general observations. 

I. What Principles included under this Head.] Under 
this title are comprehended all those active principles 
whose direct and ultimate object is the communication 
either of enjoyment or of suffering to any of our fellow- 
creatures. According to this definition, which has been 
adopted by some eminent writers, and among others by 
Dr. Reid, resentment, revenge, hatred, belong to the class 
of our affections, as well as gratitude or pity. Hence 
a distinction of the affections into benevolent and malevo- 
lent. I shall afterwards mention some considerations 
which lead me to think that the distinction requires some 
limitations in the statement. 

Our benevolent affections are various, and it would 
not perhaps be easy to enumerate them completely. 
The parental and the filial affections, the affections of 
kindred, love, friendship, patriotism, universal benevo- 
lence, gratitude, pity to the distressed, are some of the 
most important. Besides these there are peculiar benevo- 
lent afl'ections excited by those moral qualities in other 
men, which render them either amiable or respectable, 
or objects of admiration. 

In the foregoing enumeration, it is not to be understood 
that all the benevolent afl'ections particularly specified are 
stated as original principles, or ultimate facts in our con- 
stitution. On the contrary, there can be little doubt that 
several of them may be analyzed into the same general 
principle differently modified, according to the circum- 
stances in which it operates. This, however, (notwith- 
standing the stress which has been sometimes laid upon it,) 
is chiefly a question of arrangement. Whether we sup- 
pose these principles to be all ultimate facts, or some of 
them to be resolvable into other facts more general, they 
5* 



54 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

y 

are equally to be regarded as constituent parts of human 
nature, and, upon either supposition, we have equal reason 
to admire the wisdom with which that nature is adapted 
to the situation in which it is placed. The laws which 
regulate the acquired perceptions of sight are surely as 
much a part of our frame as those which regulate any of 
our original perceptions ; and although they require for 
their development a certain degree of experience and ob- 
servation in the individual, the uniformity of the result 
shows that there is nothing arbitrary or accidental in their 
origin. 

The question, indeed, concerning the origin of our dif- 
ferent affections, leads to some curious disquisitions, but 
is of very subordinate importance to those inquiries which 
relate to their nature and laws and uses. In many philo- 
sophical systems, however, it seems to have been con- 
sidered as the most interesting subject of discussion con- 
nected with this part of the human constitution. 

II. Two Circumstances in which all the Benevolent 
Affections agree.~\ Before we proceed to consider any 
of our benevolent affections in detail, I shall make a 
few observations on two circumstances in which they all 
agree. In the first place, they are all accompanied with 
an agreeable feeling ; and, secondly, they imply a desire 
of happiness or of good to their respective objects.* 

1. That the exercise of all our kind affections is ac- 
companied with an agreeable feeling will not be ques- 
tioned. Next to a good conscience it constitutes the 
principal part of human happiness. With what satisfaction 
do we submit to fatigue and danger in the service of those 
we love, and how many cares do even the most selfish vol- 
untarily bring on themselves b}' their attachment to others ! 
So much, indeed, of our happiness is derived from this 
source, that those authors whose object is to furnish 
amusement to the mind avail themselves of these affec- 
tions as one of the chief vehicles of pleasure. Hence the 
principal charm of tragedy, and of every other species of 
pathetic composition. How far it is of use to separate in 

* See Reid On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. iii. 



BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 55 

this mannei" " the luxury of pity " from the opportunities 
of active exertion may perhaps be doubted. My own 
opinion on this question I have stated at some length in 
the Philosophy of the Human Mind.* 

Without entering, however, in this place into the argu- 
ment I have there endeavoured to support, I shall only 
remark at present, that the pleasures of kind affection are 
by no means confined to the virtuous part of our species. 
They mingle also with our criminal indulgences, and often 
mislead the young and thoughdess by the charms they im- 
part to vice and folly. It is, indeed, from this very quarter 
that the chief dangers to morals are to be apprehended in 
early life ; and it is a melancholy consideration to add, 
that these dangers are not a little increased by the amiable 
and attractive qualities by which nature often distinguishes 
those unfortunate men who would seem, on a superficial 
view, to be her peculiar favorites. 

Nor is it only when the kind affections meet with cir- 
cumstances favorable to their operation that the exercise 
of them is a source of enjoyment. Contrary to the analo- 
gy of most, if not of all, our other active principles, there 
is a degree of pleasure mixed with the pain even in those 
cases in which they are disappointed in the attainment of 
their object. Nay, in such cases it often happens that the 
pleasure predominates so far over the pain as to produce 
a mixed emotion, on which a wounded heart loves to 
dwell. When death, for example, has deprived us of the 
society of a friend, we derive some consolation for our 
loss from the recollection of his virtues, which awakens in 
our mind all those kind affections which the sight of him 
used to inspire ; and in such a situation the indulgence of 
these affections is preferred, not only to every lighter 
amusement, but to every other social pleasure. Heu 
quanta minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse ! 
The final cause of the agreeable emotion connected with 
the exercise of benevolence in all its various modes was 
evidently to induce us to cultivate with peculiar care a class 
of our active principles so immediately subservient to the 
happiness of society. f 

* Part I. Chap. vii. Sect. v. 

t See Lucan's picturesque and pathetic description of the behaviour 



56 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

2. All our benevolent affeclions imply a desire of 
happiness to their respective objects. Indeed, it is from 
this circumstance they derive their name. 

III. Our Benevolent Affections not resolvable into 
Self-love.'] The philosophers who have endeavoured to 
resolve our appetites and desires into self-love have giv- 
en a similar account of our benevolent affections. It is 
evident that this amounts to a denial of their existence 
as a separate class of active principles ; for when a thing 
is desired, not on its own account, but as instrumental to 
the attainment of something else, it is not the desire of the 
means, but that of the end, which is in this case the princi- 
ple of action. 

In the course of my observations on the different affec- 
tions, when I come to consider them particularly, I shall 
endeavour to show that this account of their origin is 
extremely wide of the truth. In the mean time it may be 
worth while to remark, in general, how strongly it is op- 
posed by the analogy of the other active powers already 
examined. We have found that the preservation of the 
individual and the continuation of the species are not 
intrusted to self-love and reason alone, but that we are 
endowed with various appetites which, without any reflec- 
tion on our part, impel us to their respective objects. We 
have also found, with respect to the acquisition of knowl- 
edge, (on which the perfection of the individual and the 
improvement of the species essentially depend,) that it is 
not intrusted solely to self-love and benevolence, but that 
we are prompted to it by the implanted principle of cu- 
riosity. It further appeared, that, in addition to our sense 
of duty, another incentive to worthy conduct is provided 
in the desire of esteem, which is not only one of our 
most powerful principles of action, but continues to operate 

of Cornelia when she retired to the hold of the ship to indulge her 
grief in solitude and darkness after the murder of Pompey. 

" Caput ferali obduxit amictu, 
Decrevitque pati tenebras, puppisque cavernis 
Delituit; scevumque arct^ comptexa dolorem 
Perfruitur lacrymis, et ainat pro conjuge luctum," &c., &c. 

Fharsalia, Lib. IX. 109. 



BENEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 57 

In full force to the last moment of our being. Now, as 
men were plainly intended to live in society, and as the 
social union could not subsist without a mutual interchange 
of good offices, would it not be reasonable to expect, 
agreeably to the analogy of our nature, that so important 
an end would not be intrusted solely to the slow deduc- 
tions of reason, or to the metaphysical refinements of self- 
love, but that some provision would be made for it, in a 
particular class of active principles, which might operate, 
like our appetites and desires, independently of our re- 
flection ? To say this of parental affection or of pity is 
saying nothing more in their favor than what was affirmed 
of hunger and thirst, that they prompt us to particular 
objects without any reference to our own enjoyment. 

I have not ofiered these objections to the selfish theory 
with any view of exalting our natural affections into vir- 
tues ; for, in so far as they arise from original constitution, 
they confer no merit whatever on the individual any more 
than his appetites or desires. At the same time, (as Dr. 
Reid has observed,) there is a manifest gradation in the 
sentiments of respect with which we regard these different 
constituents of character. 

Our desires, (It was formerly observed,) although not 
virtuous in themselves, are manly and respectable, and 
plainly of greater dignity than our animal appetites. In 
like manner It may be remarked that our benevolent affec- 
tions, although not meritorious, are highly amiable. A 
want of attention to the essential difference between the 
ideas expressed by these two words has given rise to 
much confusion in different systems of moral philoso- 
phy, more particularly in the systems of Shaftesbury and 
Hutcheson. 

As it would lead me into too minute a detail to consider 
our different benevolent affections separately, I shall con- 
fine myself to a i'ew detached remarks on some of the 
most Important. 

The first place is undoubtedly due to what we com- 
monly call natural affection, including under the term the 
affections of parents and children, and those of other near 
relations. 



58 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

Section II. 

OF THE AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 

I. The Parental Affection common to Jlnimals and 
Men.] The parental affection is common to us with 
most of the brutes, ahhough with them it is variously 
modified according to their respective natures, and ac- 
cording as the care of the parent is more or less necessary 
for the preservation and nurture of the young. Cicero 
remarks that this is no more than might have been ex- 
pected from that beneficent providence everywhere con- 
spicuous in nature. " Hsec inter se congruere non pos- 
sunt, ut natura et procreari vellet et diligi procreates non 
curaret."* — "Commune animantium omnium est con- 
junctionis appetitus, et cura quaedam eorum quae procreata 
sunt."f 

When I ascribe parental affection to our own species, 
I do not mean to insinuate that there is any foundation for 
those stories which poets have feigned of particular dis- 
criminating feelings which have enabled parents and chil- 
dren, after a long absence, or when they have never met 
before, mutually to recognize each other. The parental 
affection takes its rise from a knoivledge of the relation in 
which the parties stand, and it is very powerfully confirm- 
ed by habit. All that I assert is, that it results naturally 
from that knowledge, and from the habits superinduced by 
the relation which the parties bear to each other ; in 
which sense it may be justly said, (to adopt a beautiful and 
philosophical expression of Dr. Ferguson's,) that " natural 
affection springs up in the soul as the milk springs in the 
breast of the mother." | Accordingly, it operates, in a 
great measure, independently of reflection and of a sense 
of duty. Reason, indeed, might satisfy a man that his 
children are particularly intrusted to his care, and that it 

* De Fmihis, III. 19. "Nature would have been inconsistent if she 
had intended men to procreate, without providing at the same time that 
they sliould love their offspring." 

t De Offic, I. 4. " The passion which unites the sexes, and a certain 
affection for their young, are common to all animals." 

t Principles of Moral and Political Science, Vol. I, p. 31. 



AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 59 

is his duty to rear and educate them, — as reason might 
have induced him to eat and drink without the appetites of 
hunger and thirst ; but reason cannot create an affection 
any more than an appetite. And, considering how hltle 
the conduct of mankind is in general influenced by a 
sense of duty, there are good grounds for thinking, that, 
were not reason in this case aided by a very powerful 
implanted principle, a very small proportion out of the 
whole number of children brought into the world would 
arrive at maturity. 

How much this affection depends upon habit appears 
from this, that, when the care of a child is devolved upon 
one who is not its parent, the parental alTection is, in a 
great measure, transferred along with it. This (as Dr. 
Reid observes) is plainly " the work of nature," and is an 
additional provision made by her for the continuation and 
preservation of the species. 

The parental afFeciion, as we have hitherto considered 
it, is common to both sexes ; but it cannot, I think, be 
denied, that it is in the heart of the mother that it exists in 
the most perfect strength and beauty. Indeed, I do not 
think that those have gone too far who have pronounced 
" the heart of a good mother to be the masterpiece of na- 
ture^s loorks.'''' * There is no form, certainly, in which 
humanity appears so lovely, or presents so fair a copy of 
the Divine image after which it was made. 

II. Affections of Kindred the Foundation of our Social 
and Political Virtues.] Nor are these affections of par- 
ent and child useful solely for the preservation of the 
race. They form the heart in infancy for its more ex- 
tensive social duties, and gradually prepare it for those 
affections which constitute the character of the good 
citizen ; not to mention that, in every period of life, it is 
our private attachments which furnish the most powerful 
of all incentives to patriotism and heroic virtue. Nothing, 
therefore, could be more unphilosophical than the opinion 
of Plato, that the indulgence of the domestic charities 
unfitted men for the discharge of their political duties ; an 

* See Marmontel, Legons sur la Morale^ p. 132, et seq. 



60 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

opinion which he carried so far as to propose, that, as 
soon as a child was born, it should be separated from its 
parents, and educated ever after at the expense of the 
pubHc. It has been often observed that persons brought 
up in foundhng hospitals have seldom turned out well in 
the world ; and although I doubt not that various splendid 
exceptions to this proposition may be quoted, I am inclin- 
ed to think, that, if the special accidents connected with 
these exceptions were fully known, they would be found, 
instead of invalidating, to confirm the general rule. One 
thing, at least, is obvious, that, in that best of all educa- 
tions which nature has provided for us in the ordinary cir- 
cumstances of our condition, it formed an important part 
of her plan to soften the heart betimes amid the scenes of 
domestic life; and, accordingly, it is under the shelter of 
these scenes that all the social virtues may be seen to shoot 
up with the greatest vigor and luxuriancy. Even the 
sterner qualities of fortitude and bravery, so far from being 
inconsistent with a warm and susceptible heart, are almost 
its inseparable attendants, insomuch that we always expect 
to find them tinited. How true, in this respect, to all the 
best feelings of our nature, is the beautiful story recorded 
of Epaminondas, that, after the battle of Leuctra, he 
thanked the gods that his parents still survived to enjoy 
his fame ! 

It is remarked by Dr. Beattie that Homer and Virgil, 
the most accurate of all observers, and the most faithful of 
all painters of human character, always unite the domestic 
attachments with the more splendid virtues of their heroes. 
The scene between Hector and Andromache, and the in- 
terview between Ulysses and his father after an absence 
of twenty years, are pronounced by the same excellent 
critic to be the finest passages in the Iliad and Odyssey. 
He observes further, that, in the portrait of x\chilles, his 
love to his parents forms one of the most prominent and 
distinguishing features, and that "this single circumstance 
throws an amiable softness into the most terrific human 
personage that was ever described in poetry." How 
powerful a charm the ^neid derives from the same source 
it is needless to mention, as it is the chief groundwork of 
the interest inspired by the whole texture of the fable. In 



AFFECTIONS OF KINDRED. 61 

no instance is it more affecting than in the address of Eu- 
ryalus to Nisus before they set out on their desperate ex- 
pedition by night ; and, I believe, few will deny that the 
pious concern which be expresses for his aged parent in 
that moment of approaching peril accords perfectly with 
the gallantry of his spirit, and interests us more than any 
thing else in his fortunes. 

"Contra quern talia fatur 
Euryalus : me nulla dies tam fortibus ausis 
Dissimilem arguerit; lantum fortuna secunda, 
Haud adversa cadat : sed te super omnia dona, 
Unum oro : genetrix Priami de gente vetusta 
Est mihi, quam miseram tenuit non Ilia tellus, 
Mecuni excedentem, non mcenia regis Acestas : 
Hanc ego nunc ignaram hujus quodcumque pericli est 
Inque salutatam linquo nox, et tua testis 
Dextera, quod nequeam lacrymas perferre parentis. 
At tu, oro, solare inopem, et succurre relictae. 
Hanc sine me spem ferre tui ; audentior ibo 
In casus omnes. Percussa mente dederunt 
Dardanidas lacrymas : ante omnes pulcher lulus, 
Atque animura patriee strinxit pietatis imago."* 

I shall conclude this section in the words of Lord Ba- 

* ^neid. Lib. IX. 280. 

"'AH of my life,' replies the youth, 'shall aim, 
Like this one hour, at everlasting fame. 
Though fortune only our attempt can bless, 
Yet still my courage shall deserve success. 
But one reward I ask, before I go, — 
The greatest I can ask, or you bestow. 
My mother, — tender, pious, fond, and good, 
Sprung, like thy own, from Priam's royal blood, — 
Such was her love, she left her native Troy, 
And fair Trinacria, for her darling boy ; 
And such is 'mine, that I must keep unknown 
From her the danger of so dear a son : 
To spare her anguish, lo ! I quit the place 
Without one parting kiss, one last embrace ! 
By night, and that respected hand, I swear, 
Her melting tears are more than I can bear ! 
For her, good prince, your pity I implore; 
Support her, childless, and relieve her, poor; 
O, let her, let her find, (when I am gone,) 
In you, a friend, a guardian, and a son ! 
With that dear hope, emboldened shall I go. 
Brave every danger, and defy the foe.' 

" Charmed with his virtue all the Trojan peers. 
But, more than all, Ascanius melts in tears. 
To see the sorrows of a duteous son 
And filial love, a love so like his own." 

6 



62 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

con : — " Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, 
best servants, but not always best subjects, for they are 
light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of that con- 
dition. For soldiers, I find that tlie generals in their 
hortatives commonly put men in mind of their wives and 
children ; and I think the despising of marriage among the 
Turks maketh the vulgar soldiers the more base. Cer- 
tainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humari- 
ity ; and single men, though they be many times more 
charitable, because their means are less exhaust ; yet, on 
the other side, they are more cruel and hard-hearted, be- 
cause their tenderness is not so often called upon." * 



Section III. 

OF FRIENDSHIP'. 

I. Pleasures of Friendship.] Friendship, like all the 
Other benevolent affections, includes two things, an agreea- 
ble feeling, and a desire of happiness to its object. 

Besides, however, the agreeable feeling common to all 
the exertions of benevolence, there are some peculiar to 
friendship. I before took notice of the pleasure we de- 
rive from communicating our thoughts and our feelings to 
others ; but this communication prudence and propriety 
restrain us from making to strangers ; and hence the satis- 
faction we enjoy in the society of one to whom we can 
communicate every circumstance in our situation, and can 
trust every secret of our heart. 

There is also a wonderful pleasure arising from the 
sympathy of pur fellow-creatures with our joys and with 
our sorrows, nay, even with our tastes and our humors ; 
but, in the ordinary commerce of the world, we are often 
disappointed in oin* expectations of this enjoyment ; a dis- 
appointment which is peculiarly incident to men of genius 
and sensibility superior to the common, who frequently 
feel themselves " alone in the midst of a crowd," and re- 
duced to the necessity of accommodating their own tem- 
per, and their owai feelings, to a standard borrowed from 

* Bacon's Essays. Of Marriage and Single Life. 



FRIENDSHIP. 63 

those whom they cannot help thinkung undeservmg of such 
a sacrifice. 

It is only in the society of a friend that this sympathy 
is at all times to be found ; and the pleasing reflection, that 
we have it in our power to command so exquisite a gratifi- 
cation, constitutes, perhaps, the principal charm of this 
connection. " What we call affection," says Mr. Smith, 
"is nothing but an habitual sympathy." I will not go 
quite so far as to adopt this proj)osition in all its latitude, 
but I perfectly agree with this profound and amiable 
moralist in thinking, that the experience of this sympathy 
is the chief foundation of friendship, and one of the princi- 
pal sources of the pleasures which it yields. Nor is it at 
all inconsistent with this observation to remark, that, where 
the groundwork of two characters in point of moral worth 
is the same, there is sometimes a contrast in the secondary 
qualities, of taste, of intellectual accomplishments, and 
even of animal spirits, which, instead of presenting ob- 
stacles to friendship, has a tendency to bind more strongly 
the knot of mutual attachment between the parties. Two 
very interesting and memorable examples of this may be 
found in Cuvier's account of the friendship between Buffon 
and Daubenton,* and in Playfair's account of the friend- 
ship between Black and Hutton.f 

I do not mean here to enter into the consideration of 
the various topics relating to friendship which are com- 
monly discussed by writers on that subject. Jllost of 
these, indeed I may say all of them, are beautifully illus- 
trated by Cicero in the treatise De Jlmicitia, in which he 
has presented us with a summary of all that was most 
valuable on this article of ethics in the writings of preced- 
ing philosophers ; and so comprehensive is the view of it 
which he has taken, that the modern authors who have 
treated of it have done little more than to repeat his ob- 
servations. 

II. Can Friendship subsist between more than Two 
Persons ?] One question concerning friendship much agi- 



* Recueil des Eloges Hlstoriques. M. Daubenton. 

t Biographical Account of the late Dr. James Hutton. Works., Vol. IV. 



6t INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

tatecl in the ancient schools was, whether this connection 
can subsist in its full perfection between more than two 
persons ; — and I believe it was the common decision of 
antiquity that it cannot. For my own part I can see no 
foundation for this limitation, and I own it seems to me to 
have been suggested more by the dreams of romance, or 
the fables of ancient mythology, than by good sense or an 
accurate knowledge of mankind. The passion of love 
between the sexes is indeed of an exclusive nature ; and 
the jealousy of the one party is roused the moment a sus- 
picion arises that tlie attachment of the other is in any de- 
gree divided ; (and, by the way, this circumstance, which 
I think is strongly characteristical of that connection, de- 
serves to be added to the various other considerations 
which show that monogamy has a foundation in human 
nature.) But the feelings of friendship are perfectly of a 
different sort. If our friend is a man of discernment, we 
rejoice at every new acquisition he makes, as it affords 
us an opportunity of adding to our own list of worthy 
and amiable individuals, and we eagerly concur with him 
in promoting the interests of those who are dear to his 
heart. When we ourselves, on the other hand, have 
made a new discovery of worth and genius, how do we 
long to impart the same satisfaction to a friend, and to be 
instrumental in bringing together the various respectable 
and worthy men whom the accidents of life have thrown in 
our way ! 

I acknowledge, at the same time, that the number of 
our attached and confidential friends cannot be great, 
otherwise our attention would be too much distracted by 
the multiplicity of its objects, and the views for which 
this affection of the mind was probably implanted would 
be frustrated by its engaging us in exertions beyond the 
extent of our limited abihties ; and, accordingl}', nature 
has made a provision for preventing this inconvenience, by 
rendering friendship the fruit only of long and intimate ac- 
quaintance. It is strengthened not only by the acquaint- 
ance which the parties have with each other's personal 
qualities, but with their histories, situations, and connections 
from infancy, and every particular of this sort which falls 
under their mutual knowledge forms to the fancy an addi- 



FRIENDSHIP. 65 

tional relation by which the}' are united. Men who have 
a very wide circle of friends, without much discrimination 
or preference, are justly suspected of being incapable of 
genuine friendship, and indeed are generally men of cold 
and selfish characters, who are influenced chiefly by a 
cool and systematical regard to their own comfort, and 
who value the social intercourse of life only as it is subser- 
vient to their accommodation and amusement. 

III. How we are affected by the Distresses of our 
Friends.] That the affection of friendship includes a de- 
sire of happiness to the beloved object it is unnecessary 
to observe. There is, however, a certain limitation of 
the remark, which occurs among the Maxims of La Roche- 
foucauld, and vi^hich has been often repeated since by 
misanthropical moralists, " That, in the distresses of our 
best friends, there is always something which does not dis- 
please us." It may be proper to consider in what sense 
this is to be understood, and how far it has a foundation in 
truth. It is expressed in somewhat equivocal terms ; and, 
I suspect, owes much of its plausibility to this very cir- 
cumstance. 

From the triumphant air with which the maxim jn ques- 
tion has been generally quoted by the calumniators of 
human nature, it has evidently been supposed by them to 
imply that the misfortunes of our best friends give us more 
pleasure than pain.* But this La Rochefoucauld has not 
said, nor indeed could a proposition so obviously false and 
extravagant have escaped the pen of so acute a writer. 
What La Rochefoucauld has said amounts only to this, 
that, in the distresses of our best friends, the pain we feel 
is not altogether unmixed ; — a proposition unquestionably 
true, wherever w^e have an opportunity of soothing their 
sorrows by the consolations of sympathy, or of evincing, 
by more substantial services, the sincerity and strength of 

* It was plainly in this sense that Sv/ift understood it when he pre- 
fixed it as a motto to the verses on his own death. 

" As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew 
From nature, I believe them true. 
If what he says be not a joke, 
We mortals are strange kind of folk." 

6* 



66 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

our attachment. But the pleasure we experience in such 
cases, so far from indicating any thing selfish or malevo- 
lent in the heart, originates in principles of a directly 
opposite description, and will be always most pure and 
exquisite in the most disinterested and generous characters. 
The maxim, indeed, when thus interpreted, is not less 
true when applied to our own distresses than to those of 
our friends. In the bitterest cup that may fall to the lot 
of either there are always mingled some cordial drops, — 
in the misfortunes of others, the consolation o( administer- 
ing relief, — in our own, that of receiving it from the sym- 
pathy of those we love. 

Whether La Rochefoucauld, in the satirical humor 
which dictated the greater part of his maxims, did not 
wish, in the present instance, to convey by his words a 
little more than meets the em\ I do not presume to de- 
termine. 

Section IV. 

OF PATRIOTISM. 

I. Provision made for a Division of Mankind into 
distinct Communities.] Notwithstanding the principles of 
union implanted by nature in the human breast, it was 
plainly not her intention that society should always go on 
increasing in numbers. A foundation is laid for a divis- 
ion of mankind into distinct communities, in those natural 
divisions on the surface of the globe that are formed by 
chains of mountains, impassable rivers, and the oceans 
which separate the larger continents ; and the same end 
is further answered by those principles of enmity which, 
in the earlier stages of society, never fail to estrange 
neighbouring tribes from each other, and which continue 
to operate with a very powerful effect even in periods of 
knowledge and refinement. 

I shall not at present attempt to analyze particularly 
the origin of these principles of disunion among mankind. 
I shall only remark, that they do not iniply any original 
malignity in the human heart ; on the contrary, they seem 
to have their source in the social nature of man, — in 



PATRIOTISM. 67 

those affections which attach him to the tribe he belongs 
to, and to the country which gave him birth. This remark 
has been so excellently illustrated by Lord Shaftesbury 
and by Dr. Ferguson, that it would be quite superfluous 
to enlarge upon it here. Contenting myself, therefore, 
with a reference to their works,* I shall proceed to some 
other views of the subject, where the field of observation 
does not seem to be so completely exhausted. 

The foundation which nature has laid for a diversity of 
languages, of customs, of manners, and of institutions 
among mankind adds force to the principles of division 
and repulsion already mentioned. These circumstances 
derive their effect, indeed, from the ignorance of men, 
which is apt to mistake a diversity of arbitrary signs and 
arbitrary ceremonies for a diversity of opinions and of 
moral sentiments ; and, accordingly, as society advances, 
and reason improves, the effect becomes gradually less 
and less sensible. As the effect, however, is universal 

* See Shaftesbury's Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor, Part 
III. Sect. 2, and Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, Part 
I. Sect. 4. The former observes : — "It is strange to imagine that war, 
which of all things appears the most savage, should be the passion of 
the most heroic spirits. But it is in war that the knot of fellowship is 
closest drawn. It is in war that mutn.al succour is most given, mutual 
danger run, and common affection most exerted and employed. For 
heroism and philanthropy are almost one and the same. Yet, liv a small 
misguidance of the affection, a lover of mankind becomes a ravager ; a 
liero and deliverer becomes an oppressor and destroyer." " Vast em- 
pires are in many respects unnatural ; but particularly in this, that, be 
they ever so well constituted, the affairs of many must in such govern- 
ments turn upon a very few; and the relation be less sensible, and in a 
manner lost, between the magistrate and people, in a body so unwieldy 
in its limbs, and whose members lie so remote from one another, and 
distant from the head. It is in such bodies as these that strong factions 
are aptest to engender. The associating spirits, for want of exercise, 
form new movements, and seek a narrower sphere of activity, when 
they want action in a greater. Thus we have wheels within wheels. 
And in some national constitutions, (notwithstanding the absurdity in 
politics,) we have one empire within another. Nothing is so delightful 
as to incorporate." In the same strain Ferguson : — " The titles of fel- 
loio-citizen and countryman, unopposed by those of alien and foreigner, 
to which they refer, would fall inio disuse, and lose their meaning. 
We love individuals on account of personal qualities; but we love our 
countrj', as it is a party in the divisions of mankind ; and our zeal for 
its interest is a predilection in behalf of the side we maintain." " ' My 
father,' said a Spanish peasant, ' would rise from his grave, if he could 
foresee a war with France.' What interest had he, or the bones of his 
father, in the quarrels of princes i " 



63 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

among rude nations, and as it is the unavoidable result of 
the genera] laws of our constitution when placed in certain 
circumstances, we may consider it as a part of the plan 
of Providence with respect to our species ; and we may 
presume that here, as in other instances, that plan tends 
ultimately to some wise and beneficent purpose, though 
by means which appear to us, at first view, to have a very 
unfavorable aspect. What these purposes are it. is im- 
possible for our limited faculties to trace completely ; but 
even loe, narrow and partial as our views at present are, 
may perceive some salutary consequences resulting from 
these apparent disorders of the moral world. I shall only 
mention the tendency which a constant state of hostility 
and alarm must have among barbarous tribes to bind and 
consolidate in each of them apart the political union ; and, 
by strengthening the hands of government, to prepare the 
way for the progress of society. We may add, the ex- 
ercise which it gives to many of our most important moral 
principles, and the powerful stimulus it applies to our 
intellectual capacities. The discipline is indeed rough, 
but it is perhaps the only one of which the mind of man, 
in a certain state of his progress, is susceptible. 

IT. Tendency of Civilization to diminish the Causes of 
Disun^n.] If these observations are well founded, may 
we not presume to offer a conjecture, that, as this final 
cause ceases to exist in proportion as government ad- 
vances to maturity, and as the moral causes of hostility 
among nations (arising from diversity of language and of 
manners) cease to operate upon men of enlightened and 
liberal minds, the tendency of civilized society is to di- 
minish the dissensions among different communities, and 
to unite the human race in the bonds of amity .' The just 
views of political economy which Mr. Smith and some 
other authors have lately opened, and which demonstrate 
the absurdity of commercial jealousies, all contribute to 
encourage the same pleasing prospects ; but alas ! it is a 
prospect which the vices and prejudices of men allow us 
to indulge only in those moments of enthusiasm when our 
benevolent wishes for mankind, and our confidence in the 
wisdom and goodness of Providence, transport us from 



PATRIOTISM. 69 

the calamities and atrocities of our own times, to antici- 
pate the triumphs of reason and humanity in a m.ore fortu- 
nate age. 

In my Philosophy of the Human JMind I have remark- 
ed, that " there are many prejudices which are found to 
prevail universall}'- among our species in certain periods of 
society, and which seem to be essentially necessary for 
maintaining its order in ages w'hen men are unable to com- 
prehend the purposes for which governments are insti- 
tuted. As society advances, these prejudices gradually 
lose their influence on the higher classes, and would 
probably soon disappear altogether, if it were not supposed 
to be expedient to prolong their existence as a source 
of authority over the multitude. In an age, however, of 
universal and unrestrained discussion, it is impossible that 
they can long maintain their empire ; nor ought we to 
regret their decline, if the important ends to which they 
have been subservient in the past experience of mankind 
are found to be accomplished by the growing light of 
philosophy. On this supposition a history of human preju- 
dices, in so far as they have supplied the place of more 
enlarged political views, may, at some future period, fur- 
nish to the philosopher a subject of speculation no less 
pleasing and instructive than that beneficent wisdom of 
nature which guides the operations of the lower animals, 
and which, even in our own species, takes upon itself the 
care of the individual in the infancy of human reason." * 

The remarks which have been now made on the 
sources of disunion and hostility among mankind in the 
earlier periods of society, and on the final causes to which 
this constitution of things is subservient, afford one re- 
markable illustration of the conjecture which I have haz- 
arded in the foregoing passage. 

Before proceeding to consider the affection of patriot- 
ism, it was necessary to turn our attention for a moment to 
the principles of disunion in our species, as the idea of 
patriotism proceeds on the supposition, that mankind are 
divided -into distinct communities,, with separate, if not 
with rival and hostile interests. 

* Part I. Chap. iv. Sect. viii. 



70 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

III. Exciting Causes of Patriotism.l The exciting 
causes of patriotism (absti-acting from all considerations 
of reason and duty) are many. We are formed with so 
strong a disposition to associate with and to love our own 
species, that the imagination lays hold with eagerness of 
every circumstance, how slight soever, tliat can form a 
bond of union ; a common language, a common religion, 
common laws, even a common appellation, — not to men- 
tion the prudential considerations of common enemies and 
a common interest. The feelings which these uniting cir- 
cumstances inspire attach us even to the territory which 
our fellow-citizens inhabit, by the same law of association 
that endears to us the spot where a friend was born, or 
the scene where we have enjoyed any social pleasure ; 
and thus the imagination forms to itself a complex idea of 
countrymen and country^ which impresses every suscepti- 
ble heart with irresistible force. In perusing the history 
of either, how remote soever the period it describes may 
be, we feel an interest which no other narrative inspires. 
We sympathize with the fortunes of those who trod the 
same ground that we now tread, and we appropriate to 
ourselves a share of the glory they acquired by their 
bravery and virtue. " When the late Mr. Anson (Lord 
Anson's brother) was on his travels in the East, he hired a 
vessel to visit the Isle of Tenedos. His pilot, an old 
Greek, as they were sailing along, said with some satisfac- 
tion, ' 'T was there our fleet lay.' Mr. Anson demanded, 
' What fleet ? ' ' What fleet ! ' replied the old man, a little 
piqued at the question, ' why, our Grecian fleet at the siege 
of Troy.'" This anecdote, (which I borrow from the 
Philological Inquiries of Mr. Harris,*) naturally excites 
a smile ; but it is, at the same time, so congenial to feel- 
ings inseparable from our constitution, that its effect seems 
to me to border on the pathetic, and I presume there are 
iew who have read it without some emotion. 

It is not a little remarkable, with respect to this natural 
attachment to the scenes of our infancy and youth, that it 
is commonly strongest among the inhabitants of barren and 
mountainous countries. This would appear to indicate 

* Part III. Chap. v. 



PATRIOTISM. 7 J 

that it is produced less by the recollection of agreeable 
physical impressions than of mora/ pleasures, —pleasures 
which probably derive an additional zest from the absence 
of those interesting or amusing objects which dissipate the 
attention by inviting the thoughts abroad. Where nature 
has been sparing in her external bounty, men become the 
more dependent for their happiness on internal enjoyment ; 
It IS thus that the storms and gloom of winter give a hioher 
relish to the pleasures of society. Perhaps, too, thelhin 
and scattered population of such countries may contribute 
soniething to the romantic enthusiasm of the domestic and 
private attachments, as it is certain that the opposite ex- 
treme of a crowded and busy population seldom fails to 
extinguish all the more ardent social affections. Amon°- 
the inhabitants of Europe this attachment to home is said 
to be the most remarkable in the Swiss and the Lap- 
landers, who, when removed to a distance from their na- 
tive scenes, are subject to a particular species of de- 
spondency, to which medical writers have given the name 
of nostalgia. It is thus described by Haller, who Was 
himself a native of Switzerland, and who, in some of his 
poetical pieces, composed during the period*of his aca- 
demical studies in Holland, has sufficiently shown that his 
own heart was not proof against its influence. 

'\Mostalgia genus est moeroris subditis reipublicK meje 
famihans, etiam civibus, a desiderio nati suorum. Is sen- 
sim consuniit asgros et destruit, nonnunquam in rigorem et 
maniam abit, alias in febres lentas. Eum spes sanat. 
Etiam animaha consueta societate privata, nonnunquam de- 
pereunt, et ex pullis amissis etiam lutra^ maris Kamtschada- 
lensis.^ Sic ex amore frustrato lenta et insanabilis con- 
sumptio sequitur, quod Angli cor ruptum vocant."* 

We are informed by another medical writer, (Sauvao-es ) 
that he has known this disorder in the son of a cor^mon 

* Elem. Physiol, Lib. XVII. Sect. 2, § 5. ^^ Jfostalgia is a malady 
common among my countrymen, originating in a longing for home U 
gradually consumes and wears out the patient, sometimes going off in 
chills and mama, sometimes in a slow fever. Hope cures it Even 
animals, when deprived of their accustomed companions, will some 
times die; as is the case with the sea-otter of Kamtschatka when bereft 
ot her young. So likewise, a lingering and incurable consumption fol- 
lows disappointed love, which the English call a broken heart.'' 



72 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

beggar, who could scarcely be said to have any home but 
the streets and public roads. '"^ 

"Thus every good his native wilds impart 
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart. 
And even tlie ills that round his mansion rise 
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. 
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
And dear that hill that lifts him to the storms. 
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
Clings close and closer to its mother's breast, 
So the loud tempest and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more." I 

The sources of patriotism hitherto mentioned arise 
chiefly from the imagination and from the association of 
ideas, and have little or no connection with our rational 
and moral powers. They presuppose, indeed, sensibility, 
social attachment, and force of. mind, but they do not 
necessarily imply reflection or a sense of duty. They are 
the natural result of our constitution when placed in cer- 
tain circumstances ; and hence, though not coeval with 
our birth, nor after their appearance unsusceptible of 
analysis, the affection they produce, in so far as it arises 
from i/i,em»vvithout the cooperation of any other motive, 
may be considered as a blind impulse, analogous in its 
operation to those desires and appetites which have been 
already mentioned. This affection may be called, for the 
sake of distinction, instinctive patriotism. 

IV. Patriotism in Small and in Large Countries. ^^ 
The circumstances which have been enumerated as the 
sources of instinctive patriotism operate with peculiar force 
in small communities, where the extent of the teiTitory 
and the body of the people, falling under the habitual 
observation of every citizen, present more definite objects 
to the imagination, and affect the heart more deeply than 
what is only conceived from description. Here, too, the 
individual feels his importance as an active member of the 
state, and the consciousness of what he is able to do for 
its prosperity contributes powerfully to promote his patri- 
otic exertions. 



* JVosoloffia Melhodica. t Goldsmith's Traveller. 



PATRIOTISM. 73 

In an extensive and populous country the instinctive 
affection of patriotism is apt to grow languid among the 
mass of the people, and therefore it becomes the more 
necessary to impress on their minds those considerations 
of reason and duty which recommend public spirit as one 
of the principal branches of morality. What these con- 
siderations are I shall afterwards endeavour to point out 
in treating of the duties we owe to our fellow-creatures. 
At present I shall only remark, that, as instinctive patriot- 
ism decays, so rational patriotism acquires force, in pro- 
portion to the extent of territory and to the multitude of 
fellow-citizens it embraces ; in other words, in proportion 
to the magnitude of that sum of happiness which it aspires 
to secure and to augment. 

Such considerations, however, can have weight only 
with men whose sense of duty is strong ; and as, un- 
fortunately, this is not the case with a great proportion of 
mankind, it is of the utmost consequence, in every state 
of society, to cherish as much as possible the instinctive 
affection of patriotism, and to counteract those causes that 
tend to extinguish it. For this purpose nothing is more 
likely to be effectual than to diffuse a general taste for 
historical and geographical reading. A peasant who has 
never extended his thoughts beyond his own province, 
and who sees every thing flourishing and happy around 
him, is apt to consider the enjoyments he possesses as 
inseparable from the human race, and no more connected 
with any particular system of laws than the advantages he 
derives from the immediate bounty of nature. It is the 
study of history and geography alone that can remove this 
prejudice, by showing us, on the one hand, the narrow- 
limits v/ithin which the political happiness of our species 
has hitherto been confined, and, on the other, the singular 
combination of accidental circumstances to which we are 
indebted for the blessings we enjoy. This effect of histo- 
ry, indeed, tends rather to cherish rational than instinctive 
patriotism ; but it operates also wonderfully on the latter 
affection, by leading us to contrast our own country and 
countrymen with other lands and other nations, and there- 
by presenting a more definite and interesting object to the 
imagination and to the heart. When, from the transac- 
7 



74 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

tions of past ages and of foreign lands, we return to what 
is near and familiar, we are affected somewhat in the same 
manner as if we met with a fellow-citizen in a distant 
country. Absence from home never fails to endear it to 
a mind possessed of any sensibility. The extent of our 
country, too, seems to diminish to our intellectual e3'e in 
proportion as the object recedes from us, and we feel a 
sensible relation to what we before regarded with complete 
indifference. The natives of the same county in Scotland 
feel towards each other a partial predilection when they 
meet in the metropolis of Great Britain ; and the circum- 
stance of being born in this island forms a tie of friendship 
between individuals in the other quarters of the globe. 
The* study of history operates somewhat in the same 
manner, though not perhaps in the same degree. By 
transporting us in imagination over the surface of this 
planet, and by assembling before our view the myriads 
who have occupied it before us, it serves to define to our 
thoughts more distinctly the particular community to which 
w^e belong, and strengthens the bond of relationship that 
unites us to all its members. 

I shall only add further on this subject, that, when the 
extent and population of a country are so very great as to 
give it a decided preeminence among neighbouring nations, 
it has a tendency to produce (partly by interesting the 
vanity, and parily by dazzling the imagination) an attach- 
ment to national glory, which operates both on the vulgar 
and on men of better education in a way extremely analo- 
gous to the instinctive patriotism felt by the member of a 
small community. A remarkable instance of this occurred 
in the national character of the French prior to the late 
revolution, nor does it seem to have altered in this re- 
spect since that event, if we may judge from the indigna- 
tion vvith-*which the idea of a confederate republic has 
always been received. A feeling of the same kind may 
be traced in various expressions employed by Livy in the 
preface to his Roman History. " Utcunque erit, juvabit 
tamen rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi, 
pro virili parte, et ipsum consuluisse ; et si in tanta scrip- 
torum turba mea fama in obscuro sit, nobilitate ac magni- 
tudine eorum qui nomini officient meo me consoler. Res 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 75 

est praeterea et immensi operis, ut quae supra septingente- 
simum annum repetatur, et quae ab exiguis profecta initiis 
60 creverit, ut jam magnitudine laboret sua : et legentium 
plerisque baud dubito, quin primae origines proximaque 
originibus, minus pvaebitura voluptatis sint, festinantibus ad 
haec nova, quibus jampridem prsevalentis populi vires se 
ipsas conficiunt."* The very danger which such an 
empire was exposed to from its enormous magnitude, and 
from the seeds of destruction which it carried in its bosom, 
seems to heighten the patriotic affection of the historian, 
by awakening an anxious solicitude for its impending fate. 
The contrast between this feehng of national pride, and a 
melancholy anticipation of those calamities to which na- 
tional greatness leads, gives the principal charm to this 
exquisite composition. 



Section IV. 

OF PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 

I. Office and important Uses of Compassion.} As the 
unfortunate chiefly stand in need of our assistance, so there 
is provided in every breast a most powerful advocate in 
their favor ; an 'advocate, to whose solicitations it is im- 
possible even for the most obdurate to turn always a deaf 
ear. The appropriation of the word humanity to this 
part of our constitution affords sufficient evidence of the 
common sentiments of mankind upon the subject. 

* "However that may be, I shall at all events derive no small sat- 
isfaction from the refieclion that my best endeavours have been exerted 
in transmitting to posterity the achievements of the greatest people 
in the world ; and if, amidst such a multitude of writers, my name 
should not emerge from obscurity, I shall console myself by consider- 
ing the distinguished reputation and eminent merit of those who stand 
in my way in the pursuit of fame. It may be further observed, that 
such a subject must require a work of immense extent, as our researches 
must be carried back through a space of more than seven hundred years; 
that the state has, from very small beginnings, gradually increased to 
such a magnitude that it is now distressed by its own bulk ; and, besides, 
that there is every reason to apprehend that tiie generality of readers 
will receive but little pleasure from the accounts of its first origin, or of 
the times immediately succeeding, but will be impatient to arrive at 
these modern times, in which the powers of this overgrown state have 
been long employed in working their own destruction." 



76 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

" Mollissima corda 
Humano generi dare se natura fatetur, 
Quse lacrymas dedit. Hasc nostri pars optima sensfts. 

Separat hoc nos 
A grege mutorum." * 

The general principle of benevolence, or of good-will 
to our fellow-creatures, (of which I shall treat afterwards, 
when I come to consider our moral duties,) as it disposes 
us to promote the happiness of others, so it restrains us 
from doing them evil, and prompts us to relieve their dis- 
tresses. The office of compassion or pity is more limited. 
It impels us to relieve distress ; it serves as a check on 
resentment and selfishness, and the other principles which 
lead us to injure the interests of others ; but it does not 
prompt us to the communication of positive happiness. 
Its object is to relieve^ and sometimes to prevent, suffer- 
ing ; but not to augment the enjoyment of those who are 
already easy and comfortable. We are disposed to do 
this by the general spirit of benevolence, but not by the 
particular affection of pity. 

The final cause of this constitution of our nature is very 
ingeniously and happily pointed out by Dr. Butler in his 
second sermon On Compassion. This profound philoso- 
pher observes, that, " supposing men to be capable of hap- 
piness and of misery in degrees equally intense, yet they 
are liable to the latter during longer periods of lime than 
they are susceptible of the former. We frequently see 
men suffering the agonies of pain for days, weeks, and 
months together, without any intermission, except the 
short suspensions of sleep, — a stretch of misery to which 
no state of high enjoyment can approach in point of dura- 
tion. Such, too, is our constitution, and that of the world 
around us, that the sources of our sufferings are placed 
much more within the power of other men than the sources 
of our pleasures, so that there is no individual (however 
incapable he may be to add to the happiness of his fellow- 

* Juv., Sat. XV. 131, 142. 

•' Nature, who gave us tears, by that alone 
Proclaims slie made the feeliug lieart our own ; 

And 't is our noblest sense 

This marks our birth ; 

Our great distinction from the beasts of earth." 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 77 

creatures) who has it not in his power to do them great 
and extensive mischief. To prevent the abuse of this 
power when we are under the influence of any of the 
angry passions, by means of a particular affection tending 
to check the excess of resentment, was, therefore, of more 
consequence to the comfort of human life than it would 
have been to superadd to the general principle of good-will 
a particular affection prompting to the communication of 
positive enjoyment. The power we have over the misery 
of our fellow-creatures being a more important trust than 
our power of promoting the happiness of those already 
comfortable, the former stood more in need of a guard to 
check its excesses than the latter of a stimulus to animate 
its exertions. But, further, as it is more in our power 
to communicate misery than happiness, so it is more in 
our power to relieve misery than to superadd enjoyment. 
Hence an additional reason for implanting in our constitu- 
tion the affection of compassion, while there is none analo- 
gous to it urging us by an instinctive impulse to acts of 
general benevolence." 

The final causes of compassion, then, are to prevent and 
to relieve misery, — to prevent misery by checking the 
violence of our own angry passions, and to relieve misery 
by calling our attention, and engaging our good offices, to 
every object of distress within our reach. The latter is 
the more common and the more important of its offices, 
at least in the present state of society. And it is this 
which I have chiefly in view in the following observations. 

I have said that compassion calls or arrests our attention 
to the distressed objects within our reach. When we are 
immersed in the business of the world, or intoxicated with 
its pleasures, we are apt to overlook, and sometimes to 
withdraw from, scenes of misery. It is the office of com- 
passion to plead the cause of the wretched, or rather to 
solicit us to take their case under our consideration ; for 
so strong is the sense which all men have of the duty of 
beneficence, that, if they could only be brought to exercise 
their powers of reflection on the facts before them, they 
could scarcely ever fail to relieve distress, when, in con- 
sistency with other obligations, it was in their power to do 
so. One striking proof of this is, that the active zeal of 
"7 * 



78 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

humanity is (ccsteris paribus) strongest in those men whose 
warm imaginations present to them lively pictures of the 
sufferings of others ; and that there is scarcely any man, 
however callous and selfish, whose beneficence may not be 
called forth by a skilful and eloquent description of any 
scene of m.isery. General considerations with regard to 
our social duties will often have little weight ; but if the 
attention can only be fixed to facts, nature, in most in- 
stances, accomplishes the rest. Hence the importance in 
our constitution of the affection of compassion, which, 
amidst the tumult of business or of pleasure, stops us sud- 
denly in our career, and reminds us that we have social 
duties to fulfil ; — calls upon us to examine the claims of 
the helpless, and aggravates our guilt if we disregard its 
admonition. 

II. ^^n Instinctive, and not, in itself, a JMoral Princi- 
ple.] Compassion, according to the view now given of it, 
is an instinctive impulse prompting to a particular object, 
analogous in many respects to the animal appetites already 
considered. It is, indeed, one of the most amiable, and 
one of the most important parts of our constitution ; but 
it is not an object of moral approbation. Our duty lies in 
the proper regulation of it, — in considering with attention 
the facts it recommends to our notice, and in acting with 
respect to them as reason and conscience prescribe. It is 
hardly necessary for me to add, that there are cases in 
which these inform us that we ought not to follow the im- 
pulse of compassion, and in which it is no less meritorious 
in us to resist its solicitations than to deny ourselves the 
unlawful gratification of a sensual appetite ; and even in 
those instances in which our duty calls us to obey its im- 
pulse, our merit does not arise from the affection we feel, 
but from doing what our conscience approves of as right, 
on a deliberate consideration of the action we are to per- 
form, when examined in all its bearings and consequences. 

Notwithstanding, however, the unquestionable truth of 
this theoretical conclusion, it is nevertheless certain, that a 
strong and habitual tendency to indulge this affection af- 
fords no slight presumption in favor of the worth and be- 
nevolence of a character. Whoever reflects, on the one 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 79 

hand, upon its general coincidence with what a sense of 
duty prescribes, and, upon the other, on the nature of 
those circumstances by which its indulgence is checked 
and discouraged anaong men of the world, will, I appre- 
hend, readily assent to the truth of this observation. The 
poet, perhaps, went a little too far when he stated, as a 
general and unqualified maxim, ^Aya&ol agtddy.gvfg ardgfg;* 
but, upon the whole, I am inclined to think that this maxim, 
with all the exceptions which may contradict it, will be 
found much nearer to the fact than they who have been 
trained in the schools of fashioiiable persiflage will be dis- 
posed to acknowledge. 

III. The Affection of Pity not a Modification of Self- 
love.'] The philosophers who attempt to resolve the whole 
of human conduct into self-love have adopted various theo- 
ries to explain the aftection of pity. Without stopping to 
examine these, I shall confine myself to a simple statement 
of the fact, which statement will at once show how far all 
of these are erroneous, and will point out the oversight in 
which they have originated. Whoever reflects carefully 
on the effect produced on his own mind by objects which 
excite his pity must be sensible that it is a compounded 
one ; and therefore, unless we are at pains to analyze it 
carefully, we may be apt to mistake some one of the in- 
gredients for the whole combination. 

On the sight of distress we are distinctly conscious, I 

* "Good men are prone to shed tears." — "The poets," says Mr. 
Wollaston, " who of aj! writers undertake to imitate nature most, oft 
introduce even their heroes weeping. (See how Homer represents 
Ulysses, Od., E. 151 et seq.) The tears of men are in truth very different 
from tiie cries and ejulations of children. They are silent streams, and 
flow from other causes, commonly some tender, or perhaps philosophical 
reflection. It is easy to see how hard hearts and dry eyes come to be 
fashionable. But for all that, it is certain the gJandulm lachrymales 
are not made for nothing." Religion of JYature Delineated, Sect. VI. 
§ xvii. 

It is also remarked by Descartes, that the tears of children and of old 
men (in which both are apt to indulge) flow from different sources. 

" Senessfepe lachrymantur ex amore et gaudio Infantes raro ex 

iBBtitia lachrymantur, ssepius ex tristitia, etiam quam amor non comita- 
tur." (De Passionibus, Secunda Pars, Art. cxxxiii.) The important 
facts here described have seldom been remarked; and the statement of 
them does honor to Descartes, as an attentive and accurate observer of 
human nature in the beginning and towards the close of its history. 



80 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

think, of three things : — 1st. A painful emotion in conse- 
quence of the distress we see. 2d. A selfish desire tore- 
move the cause of this uneasiness. 3d. A disposition to 
relieve the distress from a benevolent and disinterested 
concern about the sufferer. If we had not this last dis- 
position, and if it were not stronger than the former, the 
sight of a distressed object would invariably prompt us to 
fly from it, as we frequently see those men do in whom 
the second ingredient prevails over the third. In ordinary 
cases the impulse of pity attaches us to the cause of our 
sufferings ; and we cling to it, even although we are con- 
scious that we can afford no relief but the consolation of 
sympathy ; — a demonstrative proof that one at least of 
the ingredients of pity (and in most men the prevailing 
ingredient) is purely disinterested in its nature and origin.* 

* There is a passage in Hazlitt's Essays on the Principles of Human Ac- 
tion, 2d Ed., pp. 131 e< se^., which exposes a common fallacy on this sub- 
ject. " It is absurd to say, that, in compassionating tiie distress of others, 
we are only affected by our own pain and uneasiness, since this very 
pain arises from our compassion. It is putting the effect before the 
cause. Before I can be affected by my own pain, I must be put in 
pain. If I am affected by, or feel pain and sorrow at, an idea existing 
in my mind, which idea is neither pain itself nor an idea of my own 
pain, in what sense can this be called the love of myself? Again, I am 
equally at a loss to conceive how, if the pain whicli this idea gives me 
does not impel me to get rid of it as it gives me pain, or as it actually 
affects myself as a distinct, momentary impression, but as it is connected 
with other ideas, that is, is supposed to affect another, — how, I say, 
this can be considered as the efiect of self-love. The object, effort, or 
struggle of the mind is not to remove the idea or immediate feeling of 
pain from the [sympathizing] individual, or to put a stop to that feeling 
as it affexts his temporary interest, but to produce a disconnection 
(whatever it may cost liim) between certain ideas of other things exist- 
ing in his mind, namely, the idea of pain and the idea of another per- 
son. Self, mere physical self, is entirely forgotten, both practically and 
consciously. 

"' O, but,' it will be said, ' I cannot help feeling pain when I see 
another in actual pain, or get rid of the idea by any other means than 
by relieving the person, and knowing that it exists no longer.' But 
will this prove that my love of others is regulated by my love of my- 
self, or that my self-love is subservient to my love of others .' What 
hinders me from immediately removing the painful idea from my mind 
but that sympathy with others which stands in the way of it .'' That 
this independent attachment to the good of others is a natural, una- 
voidable feeling of the human mind is what I do not wish to deny. It 
is also, if you will, a mechanical feeling; but then it is neither a physi- 
cal nor a selfish mechanism. I see colors, hear sounds, feel heat and 
cold, and believe that two and two make four, by a certain mechanism, 
or from the necessary structure of the human mind; but it does not 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 81 

Although, however, this observation seems to me deci- 
sive against the theory in question, in whatever form it 
may be proposed, I cannot omit this opportunity of ex- 
amining a new modification of the same hypothesis, which 
occurs in Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. 
The view of the subject which he has taken has the merit 
of entire originality, and, like all his other speculations 
and opinions, derives a strong recommendation from the 
splendid abilities and exemplary worth of the author. I 
hope, therefore, that the critical strictures upon it which 
I am now to offer will not be considered as a useless or 
unreasonable interruption of the discussions in which we 
are at present engaged. 

Before entering on this argument, I shall just mention 
another hypothesis concerning the origin of compassion, 
which seems to me to approach more nearly to that of Mr. 
Smith than any thing else I have met with in the works of 
his predecessors. I allude to the account of pity given 
by Hobbes, who defines it to be " the imagination or fic- 
tion of future calamity to ourselves proceeding from the 
sense of another man's calamity." * In what respect this 
theory coincides with Mr. Smith's will appear from the 
remarks I am now to make. In the mean time I shall 
only observe how completely the futility of Hobbes's 

follow that all this has any thing to do with self-love. One half of the 
process, namely, the connecting the sense of pain with the idea of it, is 
evidently contrary to self-love ; nor do I see any more reason for ascrib- 
ing to that principle the uneasiness, or active impulse which follows, 
since my own good is neither tliought of in it, nor follows from it except 
indirectly, slowly, and conditionally. The mechanical tendency to my 
own ease or gratification is so far from being the real spring or natural 
motive of compassion that it is constantly overruled and defeated by it. 

" Lastly, should any desperate metaphysician persist in affirming that 
my love of others is still the love of myself, because the impression 
exciting my sympathy must exist in my mind and so be a part of myself, 
I should answer that this is using words without affixing any distinct 
meaning to them. The love or affection excited by any general idea 
existing in my mind can no more be said to be the love of myself than 
the idea of another person is the idea of myself because it is I who per- 
ceive it. This method of reasoning, however, will not go a great way 
to prove the doctrine of an abstract principle of self-interest, for by 
the same rule it would follow that I hate myself in hating any other 
person." 

From the italicized clause it will be seen that Hazlitt does not con- 
cede so much as Stewart to self-love. — Ed. 

* Human JVature, Chap ix. § 10, 



82 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

definition is exposed by a single remark of Butler, that, if 
it were just, it would follow that the most fearful temper 
would be the most compassionate.* We may add, loo, 
that our pity is more strongly excited by the distresses of 
an infant than by those of the aged, although the former 
are such as we cannot possibly be exposed to suffer a 
second time, and the latter such as we must expect to 
endure sooner or later, if the period of life should be pro- 
longed to that term which the weakness of most indi- 
viduals disposes them to wish for. 

IV. Mam Smith''s Theory of Pity.'] The leading 
principles of Mr. Smith's theory, in as far as it applies to 
pity or compassion, are comprehended in the three follow- 
ing propositions : — 

1st. That it is from our own experience alone we can 
form any idea of the sufferings of another person on any 
particular occasion. 

2d. That the only manner in which we can form this 
idea is by supposing ourselves in the same circumstances 
with him, and then conceiving how we should be affected 
if we were so situated. 

3d. That the uneasiness which we feel in consequence 
of the sufferings of another arises from our conceiving 
those sufferings to be our own. 

The first of these propositions is unquestionable. Our 
notions of pain and of suffering are undoubtedly derived, 
in the first instance, from our own experience. 

The second proposition is perhaps expressed with too 
great a degree of latitude. That, in order to understand 
completely the sufferings of our neighbours in any particu- 
lar instance, it is necessary for us to have been once 
placed in circumstances somewhat similar to his, I believe 
to be true, and there can be no doubt that it is frequently 
useful to us to collect our attention to the distresses of 
others, by conceiving their situation to be ours ; but it 
does not appear to me that this process of the mind takes 
place in every case in which we are affected by the sight 

* See an excellent note on Sermon V. It contains an important 
hint about sympathy, which Mr. Smith has prosecuted with great in- 
genuity. 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 83 

of misery. When we are once satisfied that a particular 
situation is a natural source of misery to the person placed 
in it, the bare perception of the situation is sufficient to 
excite an unpleasant emotion in the spectator, without any 
reference whatever to himself. This is easily explicable 
on the common doctrine o{ the association of ideas. 

Nor is this all. The looks, the gestures, the tones of 
distress, speak in a moment from heart to heart, and affect 
us with an anguish more exquisitely piercing than any we 
are able to produce by all the various expedients we can 
employ to assist the imagination in conceiving the situation 
of the sufferer. 

But, abstracting from these considerations, and granting 
the second proposition in all its extent, the third proposi- 
tion is by no means a necessary consequence ofit ; for, 
even in those cases in which we endeavour to awaken our 
compassion for the sufferings of our neighbour by conceiv- 
ing ourselves placed in his situation, our compassion is not 
founded on a belief that the sufferings are ours. So long 
as we conceive ourselves in distress, we feel a certain 
degree of uneasiness ; but this is not the uneasiness of 
compassion. In order to excite this, we must apply to 
our neighbour the result of what we have experienced in 
ourselves ; or, in other words, having formed an idea of 
what he suffers by bringing his case home to ourselves, we 
must carry our attention back to him before he becomes 
the object of our pity. Nor is there any thing mysterious 
or wonderful in this process of the mind. That we are so 
formed as to expect that the operation of the same cause, 
in similar circumstances, will be attended with the same 
result, might be shown from a thousand instances. It is 
thus, that, having tried a physical experiment on certain 
substances, I take for granted that the result of a similar 
experiment on similar substances will be the same. It is 
thus that I conclude, with the most perfect confidence, that 
a vfound given to my body in a particular organ would be 
instantly fatal ; although it is worthy of remark, that in this 
case I have no direct evidence from experience that the 
internal structure of my body is similar to those of the 
bodies which anatomists have hitherto examined. Now, I 
apprehend, it is in the same manner, that, having once 



84 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

experienced the pain produced by an instrument of torture 
applied to myself, I take for granted that the effect will 
be the same when it is applied to another. In conse- 
quence of this application, the sentiment of compassion 
arises in my mind, during the continuance of which my 
attention is completely engrossed, not about myself, but 
about the real sufferer. 

And, indeed, if the case were otherwise, compassion 
would be ultimately resolvable into a sel6sh principle, and 
those men would be most ready to feel the distresses of 
others who are most impatient of their own. A remark 
similar to this (as I have already observed) is made by 
Dr. Butler, with respect to a theory of Hobbes, who 
defines pity to be the fiction of future calamity to ourselves 
from the sight of the present calamity of another. " Were 
this the case," says Butler, " the most fearful tempers 
would be the most compassionate." According to Mr. 
Smith, pity arises from the fiction, not of future, but of 
present, calamity to ourselves. The two theories approach 
very nearly to each other, and the same answer is applica- 
ble to both.* 

In further proof that the distress produced by the suffer- 
ings of others arises from a conception that these distresses 
are our own, Mr. Smith mentions a variety of facts which 
he thinks establish his doctrine w^ith demonstrative evi- 
dence. " When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to 
fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally 
shrink and draw back our own leg, or our own arm, and 

* So far, indeed, is it from being true that tliose who are most im- 
patient under their personal distresses are the most prone to com- 
miserate the sorrows of otiiers, that I apprehend the reverse of this 
supposition will be found agreeable to universal experience. The most 
unfeeling characters I have ever known have been men, not only 
tremblingly alive to the slightest evil which affected themselves, but 
whose whole attention seemed manifestly to be engrossed with their 
own comforts and luxuries. On the other hand, the nearest approaches 
I have happened to witness to stoical patience and fortitude under 
severe suffering have been invariably accompanied with a peculiarly 
strong disposition to social tenderness and sympathy. Gray alludes to 
this contrast in his Hymn to .Idversity: — 

"To each his sufferings; all are men 
Condemned alike to groan ; 
The feeling, for another's pain. 
The unfeeling, for his own." 



PITY TO THE DISTRESSED. 85 

when it does fall we feel it in some measure, and are hurt 
by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are 
gazing at a dancer on the slack rope, naturally writhe and 
twist and balance their own bodies as they see him do, 
and as they feel that they must themselves do, if in his 
situation." In general, he observes, that, "as to be in 
pain or distress of any kind excites the most excessive 
sorrow, so to conceive or to imagine that we are in it 
excites some degree of the same emotion, in proportion 
to the vivacity or dulness of the conception." * 

The facts here appealed to by Mr. Smith are indeed 
extremely curious, and I do not pretend to explain them. 
They are not, however, singular facts in our constitution, 
but belong to that class of phenomena which medical 
writers refer to what they call the principle of imita- 
tion. f Of this kind are the contagious effects of hysterics, 
of yawning, of laughter, of crying, &c. In these last 
cases Mr. Smith would suppose, if he were to apply the 
same reasoning he uses in analogous instances, that the 
effect arises from our conceiving ludicrous or sorrowful 
ideas similar to those by which these emotions are pro- 
duced. But the primary effect seems to be produced on 
the body, and the secondary effect on the mind ; some- 
what in the same manner in which we can excite a sensible 
degree of the passion of anger in our own breast by imitat- 
ing the looks and gestures which are expressive of rage. 
It does not appear to me that this bodily contagion of the 
expression of passion has any immediate connection with 
our fellovv- feeling with distress. If it had, those would 
be most liable to it who felt the most deeply for the sor- 
rows of others, — a conclusion which is certainly not 
agreeable to fact. During the madness of Belvidera, those 
who are the most powerfully affected by the representa- 
tion are not the nervous ladies who catch from the actress 
something similar to a hysteric paroxysm ; but they who, 
retaining their own reason, reflect on the train of mis- 
fortunes which have unhinged her mind, and who weep for 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I. Sect. I. Chap. i. 

t In my Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. III., I have distin- 
guished this law of our nature by the more precise and unequivocal 
title of t!ie Principle of Sympathetic Imitation. 



86 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

her madness, not so much as a misfortune in itself, as an 
indication of that conflict of passions by which it was pro- 
duced. The efl^ect in the former case depends on a pecu- 
har irritabiHty and mobihty of the bodily frame altogether 
unconnected with any of the moral sympathies or sensi- 
bilities of our nature. 



Section VI. 

OF RESENTMENT, AND THE VARIOUS OTHER ANGRY AFFEC- 
TIONS GRAFTED UPON IT, COMMONLY CONSIDERED BY 
ETHICAL WRITERS AS MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 

I. Enumeration of the Malevolent Affections originat- 
ing in Resentment. '\ The names which are given to 
these affections in common discourse are various. Hatred^ 
Jealousy^ Envy, Revenge, Misanthropy ; but it may be 
doubted if there be any principle of this kind implanted by 
nature in the mind, excepting the Principle of Resentment, 
the others being grafted on this stock by our erroneous 
opinions and criminal habits. 

Emulation, indeed, (which is unquestionably an original 
principle of action,) is treated of by Dr. Reid under the 
title of the Malevolent Affections. But I formerly gave 
my reasons for classing this principle with the desires, and 
not with the affections. I acknowledged, indeed, that 
emulation is often accompanied with ill-will to our rival ; 
but the malevolent affection is only a concomitant cir- 
cumstance ; and it is not the affection, but the desire of 
superiority, which can be justly regarded as the active 
principle. 

Nor is this sentiment of ill-will a necessary concomitant 
of the desire of superiority ; for there is unquestionably a 
solid distinction between emulation and envy, the latter of 
which is a corruption of the former, disgraceful to the 
character and ruinous to the happiness of whoever in- 
dulges it. In the case of envy, the malevolent affection 
arises, I believe, generally from some error of the judg- 
ment or some illusion of the imagination, leading us to 
refer the cause of our own want of success either to some 
injustice on the part of our rival, or to an unjust partiality 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 87 

in the world which overrates his merits and undervalues 
ours. In both of these cases, the desire of superiority 
generates malevolent affections, by first leading us to ap- 
prehend injustice, and thus exciting the natural passion of 
resentment. 

Before proceeding to consider this principle of action, 
it may be proper again to remark, that, when the epithet 
malevolent is applied to it, that word must not be under- 
stood to imply any thing criminal, at least so long as resent- 
ment is restrained within proper bounds, after having been 
originally excited by real injustice. The epithet malevo- 
lent is used only to express that temporary ill-will towards 
the author of the apprehended injustice with which resent- 
ment is necessarily accompanied till it begins to subside. 

One of the first authors who examined with success this 
part of our constitution, and illustrated the important pur- 
poses to which it is subservient, was Bishop Butler, in an 
excellent discourse printed among his Sermons. The 
hints he has thrown out have evidently been of great use 
both to Lord Kames and Mr. Smith in their speculations 
concerning the principles of morals. 

II. Instinctive and Deliberate Resentment.'] To Butler 
we are indebted for the illustration of a very important 
distinction (which had been formerly hinted at by Hobbes) 
between instinctive and deliberate resentment. Instinctive 
resentment operates in men exactly as in the lower ani- 
mals, arising necessarily from any feeling of pain excited 
by external objects, and prompting us to a retaliation upon 
the cause of our suffering without any exercise whatever 
of reflection and reason. It is thus that a child beats 
the ground after it has hurt itself by a fall, and that we 
sometimes see a passionate man wreak his vengeance on 
inanimate objects by dashing them to pieces. This spe- 
cies of resentment, however, subsides instantly, and we 
are ready next moment to smile at the absurdity of our 
conduct. 

Deliberate resentment is excited only by intentional 
injury, and therefore implies a sense of justice, or of 
moral good or evil. It is plainly peculiar to a rational 
nature, though perhaps it is not very distinguishable from 



83 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

instinctive oi" animal resentment in the ruder state of our 
own species. It is observed by Dr. Robertson, that 
" the desire of vengeance which takes possession of the 
heart of savages resembles the instinctive rage of an animal 
rather than the passion of a man, and that it turns with un- 
discerning fury even against inanimate objects." He adds, 
" that, if struck with an arrow in battle, they will tear it 
from the wound, break and bite it with their teeth, and 
dash it on the ground."* 

This distinction, too, is much insisted on by Lord 
Karnes in various parts of his writings ; and it is Irom him 
that I have borrowed the phrase of instinctive resentment^ 
which he has substituted instead of sudden resentment, em- 
ployed by Butler. 

III. The Final Cause of Instinctive Resentment.] The 
final cause of instinctive resentment was plainly to de- 
fend us against sudden violence, (where reason would 
come too late to our assistance,) by rousing the powers 
both of mind and body to instant and vigorous exertion. 
A number of our other instincts are perfectly analogous to 
this. Such, for example, is the instinctive efibrt we make 
to recover ourselves when we are in danger of losing our 
balance,! and the instinctive despatch with which we shut 

* History of America., Book IV. § 73. 

t Although I have followed Dr. Reid's language in calling this an in- 
stinctive effort, T am abundantly aware that the expression is not unex- 
ceptionable. On this head I perfectly agree (excepting in one single 
point) with the following remarks of Gravesande : — 

"II y a quelque chose d'admirable dans le moyen ordinaire dont les 
hommes se sejrvent, pour s'empucher de tomber : car dans le terns que, 
par quelque mouvement, le poids du corps s'augmente d'une cote, un 
autre niouvement retablit I'equilibre dans I'instant. On attribue com- 
munement la chose a un instinct naturel qnoiqu'il faille necessairement 
I'attribuer a un art perfectionne par I'exercise. 

" Les enfans ignorent absolument cet art dans les premieres annees 
de leur vie ; iis I'apprennent peu a peu, et s'y perfectionnent, parce 
qu'ils ont continuellenient occasion de s'y exercer ; exercise qui, dans 
la suite, n'exige presque plus aucune attention de leur part ; tout 
comme un musicien remue les doigts, suivant les regies de I'art, pendant 
qu'il apper(^oit a peine qu'il y fasse le moindre attention." — (Euvres 
Philosuphiques de M. S'Gravesande, p. 121, 2de Partie, Amsterdam, 
1774. 

The only thing I am disposed to object to in the foregoing passage is 
that clause where the author ascribes the effort in question to an art. 
Is it not manifestly as wide of the truth to refer it to this source as to a 
pure instinct .'' 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 89 

the eyelids when an object is made to pass rapidly before 
the face. In general it will be found, that, as nature has 
taken upon herself the care of our preservation during 
the infancy of our reason, so in every case in which our 
existence is threatened by dangers, against which reason 
is unable to supply a remedy ivith sufficient promptitude, 
she continues this guardian care through the whole of life. 
The disposition which we sometim-es feel, when under 
the influence of instinctive resentment, to wreak our ven- 
geance upon inanimate objects, has suggested to Dr. Reid 
a very curious query. Whether, upon such an occasion, 
we may have a momentary belief that the object is alive ? 
For my own part, I confess my inclination to answer this 
question in the affirmative. I agree with Dr. Reid in 
thinking, that, unless we had such a belief, our conduct 
could not possibly be what it frequently is, and that it is 
not till this momentary behef is at an end that our conduct 
appears to ourselves to be absurd and ludicrous. With 
respect to infants, there are many facts beside that now 
under consideration which render it probable that their first 
apprehensions lead them to believe all the objects around 

The word art implies intelligence, — the perception of an end, and 
the choice of means. But where is there any appearance of either in 
an operation common to the whole species, (not excepting the idiot and 
the insane,) and which is practised as successfully by the brutes as by 
rational creatures ? 

Elephants (it is well known) were taught by the ancients to walk on 
the tight rope, on which occasions their trunk probably performed the 
office of a pole. Whoever has seen a peacock walk in a windy day 
along the branch of a tree must have observed the address with which 
he avails himself of his tail for the same purpose. 

Nothing, however, can place in a stronger light the capacity of the 
brutes to acquire the nice management of the centre of gravity than the 
mathematical exactness with which we may daily see horses in the czV- 
cws adjusting the inclination of their bodies to the velocity of their circu- 
lar speed. Here, indeed, a good deal is to be ascribed to the effects of 
human discipline, but by far the greater part of the groundwork is laid 
by nature in the instinctive dispositions of the animal. The acquisition 
seems to be almost as easy as that of the habits which constitute the 
acquired perceptions of sight. 

In one of the last volumes of Dr. Clarke's Travels there is a figure 
of a goat, whom the author saw standing with its four feet collected 
together on the top of a cylindrical piece of wood of a few inches 
diameter. Nobody can doubt that the effects of discipline were greatly 
facilitated in this instance by the natural instincts of the goat, which 
probably accommodated themselves with very little instruction to the 
artificial circumstances in which they were forced to operate. 



90 INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

them to be animated, and that it is only in consequence of 
experience and reason that they come to form the notion 
of insentient substances. If this be the case, the illusion 
of imagination which leads us to ascribe life to things inani- 
mate, when we are under the influence of instinctive re- 
sentment, may perha|os be owing to a momentary relapse 
into those apprehensions which were habitually familiar to 
us in the first years of our existence. 

But whatever theory we adopt on the subject, there can 
be no doubt about the fact, that the final cause of this law 
of our nature was to secure and guard us against the sud- 
den effects of external injuries in cases where there is not 
time for deliberation and judgment. With respect to 
the injuries we are liable to from our fellow-creatures, it 
secures us further by its effect in restraining them from 
acts of violence. " It is a kind' of penal statute pro- 
mulgated by nature, the execution of which is committed 
to the sufferer." * 

IV. Final Cause of Deliberate Resentment.] In man 
the instinctive resentment subsides as soon' as he is satis- 
fied that no injury was intended ; and it is only intentional 
injury that is the object of settled and deliberate resent- 
ment. The final cause of this species of resentment is 
analogous to that of the other, — to serve as a check on 
those men whose violent or malignant passions might lead 
them to disturb the happiness of their fellow-creatures. 

In order to secure still more effectually so very im- 
portant an end, we are so formed that the injustice offered 
to others, as well as to ourselves, awakens our resentment 
against the aggressor, and prompts us to take part in the 
redress of their grievances. In this case the emotion we 
feel is more properly denoted in our language by the word 
indignation ; but (as Butler has remarked) our principle 
of action is in both cases fundamentally the same, — an 
aversion or displeasure at injustice and cruelty which 
interests us in the punishment of those by whom they have 
been exhibited. Resentment, therefore, when restrained 
within due bounds, seems to be rather a sentiment of 

* Reid, On the .Active Pozcers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. v. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 91 

hatred against vice than an affection of ill-will against any 
of our fellow-creatures ; and, on this account, I am some- 
what doubtful (notwithstanding the apology I have already 
made for the title of this section) whether I have not fol- 
lowed Dr. Reid too closely in characterizing resentment, 
considered as an original part of the constitution of man, 
by the epithet of malevolent. 

An additional confirmation of this doctrine arises from the 
following consideration : — that, in candid and generous 
minds, the whole object of resentment is to convince the 
person who has injured them that he has treated them 
unjustly, — to show him that he has formed an unfair 
estimate of their characters and of their talents, and to 
obtain such a superiority over him in point of power as to 
be able, by a generous forgiveness of his aggressions, 
to convert his mahce into gratitude. In other words, in 
such minds the great object of resentment is to correct 
the faults of the delinquent, and to make a friend of an 
enemy. 

This last observation points out (by the way) the final 
cause of a very remarkable circumstance accompanying 
the affection of resentment when excited by an injury 
offered to ourselves. We desire not only the punishment 
of the offender, but that we should have the power of 
inflicting the punishment with our own hand. It is proba- 
ble that this originates partly in our love of power ; but I 
believe it is chiefly owing to a secret wish of convincing 
our enemy, by the magnanimity of our conduct, how much 
he had mistaken the object of his hatred. In the mean 
and the malicious, the passion of revenge is gratified by 
any suffering inflicted on an enemy, whether by an indif- 
ferent person or by the hand of Heaven. 

After all, however, that I have advanced in justification 
of this part of the human constitution, I must acknowledge 
that there is no principle of action which requires more 
pains, even in the best minds, to restrain it within the 
bounds of moderation. The imagination exaggerates the 
injuries that we ourselves have received ; and mistaken 
views of human nature, concurring with low spirits or dis- 
appointed ambition, lead us to ascribe to our opponents 
worse motives than those from which they really have 



92 INSTINCTIVE PKINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

acted. We seldom, too, are sufficiently attentive to the 
situations and feelings of other men, and even where we 
do make an effort to place ourselves in their circumstances, 
it is not every man who is possessed of the degree of 
imagination requisite for that purpose. Our own suffer- 
ings, at the same time, are always present to our view, 
and force themselves on the notice of the most thoughtless 
without any effort on their part. And hence it is that an 
irritability to personal injury is often accompanied with a 
callousness to the feelings of others, and even with a dis- 
position to put unfavorable constructions on their actions. 

V. Hoio checked and restrained by Indignation in 
Others.l In order to check the excesses to which this 
ungovernable passion is apt to lead us, nature has made a 
beautiful provision in that sentiment of indignation which 
the sight of injustice excites in the breast of the uncon- 
cerned spectator. This sentiment interests society in 
general in the cause of the oppressed, and serves to pro- 
tect the weak against the wrongs of tlie powerful. As it 
is not, however, liable to the same excesses with the 
passion of resentment excited by a personal injury, it 
sympathizes only with the injured while his retaliations 
are restrained within the bounds of moderation. When 
resentment rises to cruel and relentless revenge, uncon- 
cerned spectators become disposed to abandon the cause 
they had espoused, and to transfer their protection to the 
original aggressor. 

It does not follow from this observation that resentment 
and indignation are two distinct principles ; for the whole 
difference between them may be accounted for from the 
different views we naturally take of our own \^Tongs and 
those of others. They are both founded in a sentiment 
of aversion and ill-will excited by injustice ; but the one is 
more apt to pass the bounds of moderation than the other, 
in consequence of the facts being more strongly obtruded 
on our notice, and often exaggerated by the heightenings 
of imagination. 

Mr. Smith has endeavoured, on the principles now 
stated, to account for the origin of our sense of justice. 
The passion of resentment, he thinks, when excited by a 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 93 

personal injury, would set no bounds to its gratification, 
but would lead us to sacrifice every thing to revenge. But, 
as we find that other men would not go along with us when 
our revenge ceases to bear any proportion to the original 
injury, we learn to adjust our retaliations, not to our own 
feelings, but to those of the impartial spectator. Hence 
the origin of our sense of justice, our regard for which 
arises from our desire of obtaining the sympathy and the 
support of society. 

I shall afterwards state some objections to this theory, 
which appear to me unanswerable. In particular, I shall 
attempt to show, that, so far is our idea of justice from 
being posterior to the affections of resentment and indigna- 
tion, and to a comparison between our own feelings and 
those of other men, that the very emotion of deliberate 
resentment presupposes the idea of justice, and of what is 
morally right and wrong. The fact, however, on which 
the theory proceeds is a most important one, and Mr. 
Smith has had great merit in illustrating it so fully. Lord 
Kames, in his Historical Law Tracts^ has made a happy 
application of it to explain the origin and progress of 
criminal law. Which of these two authors first conceived 
the idea of applying it to jurisprudence does not appear 
to me to be perfectly certain. Both of them have evi- 
dently been much indebted in their speculations concern- 
ing this part of human nature to the Sermons of Bishop 
Butler. 

VI. Jill the Malevolent Affections attended by a Sense 
of Pain.] I shall conclude this subject at present with 
remarking, that, as all the benevolent affections are ac- 
companied with pleasant emotions, so all the malevolent 
affections are sources of pain and disquiet. This is true 
even of resentment, how justly soever it may be roused 
by the injurious conduct of others. Here, too, we may 
perceive a final cause perfectly analogous to that of which 
I formerly took notice in treating of the benevolent affec- 
tions. As the pleasant emotion accompanying thfse seems 
evidently to have been intended as an incitement to us to 
cultivate and cherish them, so the painful feeling accom- 
panying resentment, and every other affection which is 



94 INSTINCTIVE PHINCIPLES OF ACTION. 

hostile to our fellow-creatures, serves as a check on the 
habitual indulgence of them, and induces us, as soon as 
the first impulse of passion is over, and reason begins to 
reassume her empire, to obliterate every trace of them 
from the memory. Dr. Reid has expressed this last ob- 
servation with great beauty, and has enforced it with un- 
common felicity of illustration. " When we consider that, 
on the one hand, every benevolent affection is pleasant in 
its nature, is health to the soul and a cordial to the spirits ; 
that nature has made even the outward expression of 
benevolent affections in the countenance pleasant to every 
beholder, and the chief ingredient of beauty in the human 
face divine ; that, on the other hand, every malevolent 
affection, not only in its faulty excesses, but in its moder- 
ate degrees, is vexation and disquiet to the mind, and 
even gives deformity to the countenance, it is evident that 
by these signals nature loudly admonishes us to use the 
former as our daily bread, both for health and pleasure, 
but to consider the latter as a nauseous medicine, which is 
never to be taken without necessity, and even then in no 
greater quantity than the necessity requires."* 

After the clear, and, at the same time, cautious terms 
in which Butler, Kames , and Smith have expressed them- 
selves concerning resentment^ it is surprising to find some 
late writers of considerable name speaking of the pleasure 
of revenge as a natural gratification, of which every man 
is entitled to look forward to the enjoyment ; and which, 
after the establishment of the political union, every man 
has a right to insist upon at the hands of the civil mag- 
istrate. Such, in particular, seems to be the opinion 
of Mr. Bentham, and of his very ingenious and eloquent 
commentator, M. Dumont : — 

"Every species of satisfaction naturally brings in its 
train a punishment to the defendant, a pleasure of ven- 
geance for the party injured. This pleasure is a gain : it 
recalls the riddle of Samson ; it is the sweet which comes 
out of the strong ; it is the honey gathered from the car- 
cass of the lion. Produced without expense, net result of 
an operation necessary on other accounts, it is an enjoy- 

* On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part II. Chap. vi. 



MALEVOLENT AFFECTIONS. 95 

inent to be cultivated as well as any other ; for the pleasure 
of vengeance, considered abstractedly, is, like every other 
pleasure, only good in itself. It is innocent so long as it 
is confined within the limits of the laws ; it becomes crimi- 
nal at the moment it breaks them Useful to the 

individual, this motive is also useful to the public, or, to 
speak more correctly, necessary. It is this vindictive 
satisfaction which often unties the tongue of the witnesses ; 
it is this which generally animates the breast of the accuser, 
and engages him in the service of justice, notwithstanding 
the trouble, the expenses, the enmities, to which it exposes 
him ; it is this which overcomes the public pity in the 
punishment of the guilty 

" Some commonplace moralists, always the dupes of 
words, cannot understand this truth. ' The desire of ven- 
geance is odious ; all satisfaction drawn from this source 
is vicious ; forgiveness of injuries is the noblest of virtues.' 
Doubtless, implacable characters, whom no satisfaction 
can soften, are hateful, and ought to be so. The forgive- 
ness of injuries is a virtue necessary to humanity ; but it is 
only a virtue when justice has done its vs^ork, when it has 
furnished or refused a satisfaction. Before this, to forgive 
injuries is to invite their perpetration, — is to be, not the 
friend, but the enemy of society. What could wickedness 
desire more than an arrangement by which offences should 
be always followed by pardon ? " * 

The observations above quoted from Butler, Reid, 
and Smith will at once point out the limitations with 
which this passage must be understood, and will furnish a 
triumphant reply to it where it departs from the truth. f 

* Bentham's Principles of Penal Laic, Part I. Chap. xvi. The 
French translation by M. Dumont was published before the original, 
and was quoted by Mr. Stewart. I have taken the liberty to substitute 
the original, which has since appeared. — Ed. 

t To the works already cited or referred to in this and the preceding 
chapters as illustrating what Mr. Stewart calls the Instinctive Principles 
of Action should be added Brown's PhilosnpJnf of the Human Mind, 
Lect. LXV.'-LXXII. Cogan's Philosophical Treatise on the Passions. 
Ranch's Psychology, Part II. Sect. II. Damiron, Psychologic, Sect. II. 
Chap. ii. — Ed. 



BOOK II. 

OF OUR RATIONAL* AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES 
OF ACTION. 



CHAPTER I 



OF A PRUDENTIAL REGARD TO OUR OWN HAPPINESS, 
OR WHAT IS COMMONLY CALLED BY MORALISTS 
THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-LOVE. 

I. Difference between the Animal and Rational JVa- 
tures.^ The constitution of man, if it were composed 
merely of the active principles hitherto mentioned, would, 
in some important respects, be analogous to that of the 
brutes. His reason, however, renders his nature and 
condition, on the whole, essentially different from theirs ; 
and, by elevating him to the rank of a moral o.gent, dis- 
tinguishes him from the lower animals still more remarka- 
bly than by the superiority it imparts to his intellectual en- 
dowments. 

Of this want of reason in the brutes, it is an obvious 
result, that they are incapable of looking forward to conse- 
quences, or of comparing together the different gratifica- 
tions of which they are susceptible ; and, accordingly, as 
far as we can perceive, they yield to every present im- 
pulse. Among the inhabitants of this globe it is the ex- 

* To various active principles which have been already under our 
consideration, such, for instance, as the desire of knowledge, the desire 
of esteem, pity to the distressed, &c., &c., the epithet rational may un- 
doubtedly be applied in one sense with propriety, as they exclusively 
belong to rational beings; but they are yet of a nature essentially dif- 
ferent from those active principles of which we are now to treat, and 
which I have distinguished by the title of Rational and Goveiiiing. My 
reasons for using this language will appear from the sequel. 



SELF-LOVE. 97 

elusive prerogative of man, as an intelligent being, to take 
a comprehensive survey of his various principles of action, 
and to form plans of conduct for the attainment of his 
favorite objects. He is possessed, therefore, of the 
power of self-government ; for how could a plan of con- 
duct be conceived and carried into execution without a 
power of refusing occasionally to particular active prin- 
ciples the gratification which they demand ? This dif- 
ference between the animal and the rational natures is 
well and concisely described by Seneca in the following 
words : — '■'■ Animalibus pro ratione impetus ; homini pro 
impetii ratio.'''' * 

According to the particular active principle which influ- 
ences habitually a man's conduct, his character receives 
its denomination of covetous, ambitious, studious, or vo- 
luptuous ; and his conduct is more or less systematical 
as he adheres to his general plan with steadiness or incon- 
stancy. 

II. Importance of Self-control and of systematic and 
concentrated taction.] It is hardly necessary for me to 
remark how much a man's success in his favorite pursuit 
depends on the systematical steadiness with which he keeps 
his object in view. That an uncommon measure of this 
quality often supplies, to a great degree, the place of 
genius, and that, where it is wanting, the most splendid 
endowments are of little value, are facts which have been 
often insisted on by philosophers, and which are confirmed 
to us by daily experience. The effects of this concen- 
tration of the attention to one particular end on the de- 
velopment and improvement of the intellectual powers 
in general have not been equally taken notice of. They 
are, however, extremely remarkable, as every person will 
readily acknowledge, who compares the sagacity and 
penetration of those individuals who have enjoyed its ad- 
vantages with the weakness and incapacity and dissipation 
of thought produced by an undecided choice among the 
various pursuits which human life presents to us. Even 
the systematical voluptuary, while he commands a much 

* Seneca, De Ira, II. 16. " Animals have impulse for reason ; man,, 
reason for impulse." 

9 



98 SELF-LOVE. 

greater variety of sensual indulgences, and continues them 
to a much more advanced age than the thoughtless profli- 
gate, seldom fails to give a certain degree of cultivation to 
his understanding, hy employing his faculties habitually in 
one direction. 

The only exception, perhaps, which can be mentioned 
to this last remark, occurs in the case of those men whose 
leading principle of action is vanity, and who, as their 
rule of conduct is borrowed from without, must, in conse- 
quence of this very circumstance, be perpetually wavering 
and inconsistent in their pursuits. Accordingly, it will be 
found that such men, although they have frequently per- 
formed splendid actions, have seldom risen to eminence in 
any one particular career, unless when, by a rare concur- 
rence of accidental circumstances, this career has been 
steadily pointed out to them, through the whole of their 
lives, by public opinion. 

" Alcibiades," says a French writer, " was a man not 
of ambition, but of vanity, — a man whose ruling passion 
was to make a noise, and to furnish matter of conversation 
to the Athenians. He possessed the genius of a great 
man, but his soul, the springs of which were too much 
slackened to urge him to constant application, could not 
elevate him, but by starts, to pursuits worthy of his powers. 
I can scarcely bring myself to believe that a man, whose 
versatility was such as to enable him, when in Sparta, to 
assume the severe manners of a Spartan, and, when in 
Ionia, to indulge in the refined voluptuousness of an 
Ionian, had received from nature the stamina of a great 
character." * 

To what has been now observed in favor of systemati- 
cal views in the conduct of life it may be added, that they 
are incomparably more conducive to happiness than a 
course of action influenced merely by occasional inclination 
and appetite. Lord Shaftesbury goes so far as to assert, 
that even the man who is uniformly and systematically bad 
enjoys more happiness (perhaps he would have been nearer 
the truth if he had contented himself with saying that he 
suffers less misery) than one of a more mixed and more 

* Quoted by Warburton in his note on Pope's character of the Duke 
of Wharton, Moral Essays, Ep. I. 190. 



SELF-LOVE. 99 

inconsistent character. "It is the thorough profligate 
knave alone, the complete unnatural villain, who can any- 
way bid for happiness with the honest man. True interest 
is wholly on one side or on the other. All between is 
inconsistency, irresolution, remorse, vexation, and an ague 
fit, — from hot to cold, — from one passion to another 
quite contrary, — a perpetual discord of life, and an alter- 
nate disquiet and self-dislike. The only rest or repose 
must be through one determined considerate resolution, 
which, when once taken, must be courageously kept, and 
the passions and affections brought under obedience to it, 
— the temper steeled and hardened to the mind, — the 
disposition to the judgment. Both must agree, else all 
must be disturbance and confusion." * 
To the same purpose Horace : — 

"Q,uanto constantior idem 
In vitiis, tanto levior miser, ac prior illo 
Q,ui jam contento, jam laxo fune laboret." t 

III. Examples of the Evils of Inconstancy.] Of the 
state of a mind originally possessed of the most splendid 
endowments, but where every thing had been suffered to 
run into anarchy from the want of some controlling and 
steady principle of action, a masterly picture is drawn by 
Cicero in the following account of Catiline. 

" Utebatur hominibus improbis multis, et quidem op- 
timis se viris deditum esse simulabat ; erant apud ilium 
illecebrse libidinum multse ; erant etiam industrise quidam 
stimuli ac laboris : flagrabant libidinis vitia apud ilium ; 
vigebant etiam studia rei militaris : neque ego unquam 
fuisse tale monstrum in terris ullum puto, tarn ex contrariis 
diversisque inter se pugnantibus naturae studiis cupiditati- 
busque conflatum. Quis clarioribus viris quodara tem- 
pore jucundior .'' quis turpioribus conjunctior ? quis civis 
meliorum partium aliquando ? quis tetrior hostis huic 
civitati ? quis in voluptatibus inquinatior .'' quis in labori- 



* Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor, Part IV. Sect. 1. 

t Hor., Ser7no., Lib. II., Sat. VII. 18. 

" So constant was he to his darling vice, 
Yet less a wretch than he who now maintains 
A steady course, now drives with looser reins." 



100 SELF-LOVE. 

bus patientior ? quis in rapacitale avarior ? quis in largl- 
tione effusior ? " * 

In a person of ibis description, whatever indications of 
genius and ability he may discover, and whatever may be 
the great qualities he possesses, there is undoubtedly some 
tendency to insanity, which, if it were not the radical 
source of the evil, could haidly fail, sooner or later, to be 
the ejj'ect of a perpetual conflict between different and 
discordant passions. And, accordingly, -this is the idea 
which Sallust seems to have formed of this extraordinary 
man. " His eyes," he observes, " had a disagreeable 
glare ; his complexion was pale ; his walk sometimes 
quick, sometimes slow ; and his general appearance indi- 
cated a discomposure of mind approaching to madness." 

I would not be understood to insinuate by this last ob- 
servation, that, in every case in which we observe a con- 
duct apparently inconsistent and irregular, we are entitled 
to conclude, all at once, that it proceeds from accidental 
humor, or from a disordered understanding. The knowl- 
edge of a man's ruling passion is often a key to what ap- 
peared, on a superficial view, to be perfectly inexplicable. 
Some excellent reflections on this subject are to be found 
in the first of Pope's Moral Essays^ where they are most 
happily and forcibly illustrated by the character of the 
Duke of Wharton. 

" Search, then, the ruling passion : there alone 
The wild are constant, and the cunning known; 
The fool consistent, and the false sincere ; 
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here. 
This clew once found unravels all the rest, 
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confessed. 
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 
Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise. 

* Oralio pro M. Calio, Sect. V. and VI. " He was acquainted with a 
great number of wicked men, yet a pretended admirer of the virtuous. 
His house was furnished with a variety of temptations to lust and lewd- 
ness, yet with several incitements also to industry and labor: it was a 
scene of vicious pleasures, yet a school of martial exercises. There 
never was such a monster on earth, compounded of passions so contrary 
and opposite. Who was ever more agreeable at one time to the best 
citizens.' who more intimate at another with the worst.' who a man of 
better professions .' who a fouler enemy to this city ? who more intem- 
perate in pleasure.' who more patient in labor.' who more rapacious in 
plundering.' who more profuse in squandering.' " 



SELF-LOVE. 101 

Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 
Women and fools must like him, or he dies. 

Ask you why Wharton broke through every rule? 
'T was all for fear the knaves should call him fool. 
Nature well known, no prodigies remain, 
Comets are regular and Wharton plain." 

I have only to add to these observations of Pope, that I 
believe the inconsistencies he describes are chiefly to be 
found in the conduct of men whose ruling principle of ac- 
tion is vanity. I have already remarked, that while every 
other principle which gains an ascendant over the rest has 
a tendenc}'^ to systematize our course of action, vanity has, 
on the contrary, a tendency to disorganize it, leading us 
always to look abroad for our rule of conduct, and thereby 
rendering it as wavering and inconsistent as the opinions 
and fashions of mankind. Where vanity, therefore, is 
the ruling passion of any individual, a want of system 
may be regarded as a necessary consequence of his gen- 
eral character. 

IV. Why the Desire of Happiness should be accounted 
a Rational and not an Instinctive Principle of Jiction-I 
From the foregoing considerations it sufficiently appears 
how much the nature of man is discriminated from that of 
the brutes, in consequence of the comprehensive view 
which his reason enables him to take of his different prin- 
ciples of action, and of the deliberate choice he has it in 
his power to make of the general plan of conduct he is to 
pursue. There is another, however, and a very important 
respect, in which the rational nature differs from the ani- 
mal, — that it is able to form the notion of happiness, or 
what is good for it upon the whole, and to deliberate about 
the most effectual means of attaining it. It is owing to 
this distinguishing prerogative of our species that we can 
avail ourselves of our past experience in avoiding those 
enjoyments which we know will be succeeded by suffer- 
ing, and in submitting to lesser evils which we know are 
to be instrumental in procuring us a greater accession of 
good. " Sed inter hominem et belluam," says Cicero, 
" hoc maxime interest, quod hsec tantiim quantum sensu 
movetur, ad id solum quod adest, quodque prsesens est, se 
9* 



102 SELF-LOVE. 

accommodat, paullulum admodum sentiens prseteritum aut 
futurum. Homo autem, quoniam rationis est parliceps, 
per quam consequentia cernit, causas rerum videt, ea- 
rumque praegressus et antecessiones non ignorat ; similitu- 
dines comparat, et rebus praesentibiis adjungit atque an- 
nectit futuras ; facile totius vitae cursum videt, ad eamque 
degendam prseparat res necessarias." * 

It is implied in the very idea of happiness that it is a 
desirable object, and therefore self-love is an active prin- 
ciple very different from those which have been hitherto 
considered. These, for aught we know, may be the 
effect of arbitrary appointment, and they have accordingly 
been called implanted principles, or principles resulting 
from a positive accommodation of the constitution of man 
to the objects with which he is surrounded. The desire 
of happiness may be called a 7~al.iunal principle of action, 
being peculiar to a rational nature, and inseparably con- 
nected with it. It is impossible to conceive a being capa- 
ble of forming the notions of happiness and misery, to 
whom the one shall not be an object of desire, and the 
other of aversion. f 

V. Objections to the Term Self-love.'] In prefixing 
to this chapter the title of Self-love, the ordinary language 
of modern philosophy has been followed, as I am always 

* De Off., Lib. I. 4. " But between man and the lower animals there 
is in other respects the greatest diti'erence. The latter, guided by the 
impulse of their senses alone, are confined to what is present, or near, 
with a very slight knowledge of the past or the future. Man, however, 
who partakes of reason, distinguishes the causes and the consequences 
of events, observes their progress, compares similar circumstances, con- 
nects the past with the future, surveys the whole course of life, and 
makes the necessary provision for its well-being." 

t From this constitution of the human mind, as at once sensitive and 
rational., arise necessarily the emotions of hope and fear, joy and sorrow. 
Tlie pleasurable emotion arising from good in expectation is called hope, 
the painful emotion arising from apprehended evil is called fear. The 
words joy and sorrow are more general, applicable alike to tlie emotions 
arising from the experience and from the apprehension of good and of 
evil. The interest which our benevolent afiections give us in the con- 
cerns of others inspires us (more particularly in the case of those to 
whom we are fondly attached) with emotions analogous to those which 
have a reference to our own condition. * 

The laws which regulate these emotions connected with the sensi- 
tive nature of man deserve a careful examination ; but the subject does 
not fall under the present part of my plan. 



SELF-LOVE. 103 

anxious to avoid unnecessary innovations in the use of 
words. The expression, however, is exceptionable, for 
it suggests an analogy (where there is none in fact) be- 
tween that regard which every rational being must neces- 
sarily have to his own happiness and those benevolent 
affections which attach us to our fellow-creatures. There 
is surely nothing in the fornaer of these principles analo- 
. gous to the affection of love; and, therefore, to call it 
by the appellation of self-love is to suggest a theory with 
respect to its nature, and a theory which has no founda- 
tion in truth. 

The word cpdnvila was used among the Greeks nearly 
in the same sense, and introduced similar inaccuracies into 
their reasonings concerning the principle of morals. In 
our language, however, the impropriety does not stop here ; 
for not only is the phrase self-love used as synonymous 
with the desire of happiness, but it is often confounded (in 
consequence of an unfortunate connection in their etymol- 
ogy) with the word selfishness, which certainly, in strict 
propriety, denotes a very different disposition of mind. 
In proof of this it is sufficient to observe, that the word 
selfishness is always used in an unfavorable sense, whereas 
self-love, or the desire of happiness, is inseparable from 
our nature as rational and sensitive beings. 

The mistaken notion that vice consists in an excessive 
self-love naturally arose from the application of the term 
self-love, or cpduviia, to express the desire of happiness. 
As benevolence, or the love of mankind, constitutes, in 
the opinion of many moralists, the whole of virtue, so it 
was not unnatural to conclude that the love of ourselves 
(which this mode of speaking seems to contrast with be- 
nevolence) was the radical source of all the vices. And, 
accordingly, this conclusion has been adopted by many 
writers, both ancient and modern. "If we scan," says 
Dr. Barrow, " the particular nature, and search into the 
original causes of the several kinds of naughty dispositions 
in our souls, and of miscarriages in our lives, we shall find 
inordinate self-love to be a main ingredient, and a common 
source of them all, so that a divine of great name had 
some reason to affirm that original sin (or that innate 
distemper from which men generally become so very 



104 SELF-LOVE. 

prone to evil and averse to good) doth consist in self-love 
disposing us to all kinds of irregularity and excess." * In 
this passage, Dr. Barrow refers to the opinion of Zuin- 
glius, who has expressly called self-love the original or 
radical sin in our nature. "Est ergo ista ad peccandum 
amore sui propensio, peccatum originale." 

It is chiefly, however, from some of our English moral- 
ists that this notion concerning the nature of vice has 
derived its authority ; and the plausibility of their reason- 
ings on the subject has been much aided by that indis- 
criminate use of the words self-love and selfishness of 
which I have already taken notice. 

1 shall afterwards have occasion to show that vice does 
not consist in an excessive regard to our own happiness. 
At present I shall only remark, in addition to what was 
said above with respect to the distinction between the 
meanings of the words self-love and selfishness, that the 
former is so far from expressing any thing blamable, that 
it denotes a principle of action which we never sacrifice to 
any of our implanted appetites, desires, or affections with- 
out incurring remorse and self-condemnation. When we 
see, for example, a man enslaved by his animal appetites, 
so far from considering him as under the influence of an 
excessive self-love, we pity and despise him for neglecting 
the higher enjoyments which are placed within his reach. 
Accordingly, those very authors who tell us that vice con- 
sists in an inordinate self-love are forced to confess that 
there are some senses of the word in which it expresses a 
worthy and commendable principle of action. " Reason," 
says Dr. Barrow, " dictateth and prescribeth to us, that 
we should have a sober regard to our true good and wel- 
fare ; to our best interest and solid content ; to that 
which (all things being rightly stated, considered, and com- 
puted) will in the end prove most beneficial and satisfac- 
tory to us ; a self-love working in prosecution of such 
things, common sense cannot but allow and approve." * — 
" Tov fisv «/«i9^o'j'," says Aristotle, " del cplXavTov nt'ai.''^ 
And in another passage of the same chapter, "z/o'las 5' uv 
6 TOioviog lAullov tivai (plXavrog.^^ ■{• 

* Sermon, On Self-Love in general. 

t Ethic. JVYc, Lib. IX. Cap. viii. " A good man must be a lover of 
himself." " Such a man would seem to be the greatest of self-lovers." 



SELF-LOVE. 105 

As a further proof that selfishness is not synonymous 
with the desire of happiness, it may be observed, that, 
ahhough we apply the epithet selfish to avarice and to 
low private sensuality, we never apply it to the desire of 
knowledge or to the pursuits of virtue, which are certainly 
sources of more exquisite pleasure than riches or sensuality 
can bestow. 

"Yet at the darkened eye, the withered face. 
The hoary head, I never will repine : 
But spare, O time ! vvhate'er of mental grace, 
Of candor, love, or sympathy divine, 
Whate'er of fancy's ray, or friendship's flame, was mine." 

Such a wish is surely dictated by the most rational view 
of our real interest ; and yet no man will pretend that it 
contains any thing inconsistent with a generous and heroic 
mind. Had it been directed to wealth, to long life, or 
to the preservation of yobthful beauty and vigor, it would 
have been universally condemned as selfish and con- 
temptible. 

VI. Why some Pursuits are called Selfish, while oth- 
ers, though contributing still more to our own Good, are 
not.'\ This restriction of the term selfishness to a par- 
ticular class of human pursuits is taken notice of by Dr. 
Ferguson in his Essay on Civil Society, and seems to be 
considered by him as originating in a capricious, or rather 
in an inconsistent, use of language. " It is somewhat 
remarkable, that, notwithstanding men value themselves so 
much on qualities of the mind, on parts, learning, and wit, 
on courage, generosity, and honor, those men are still sup- 
posed to be in the highest degree selfish, or attentive to 
themselves, who are most careful about animal life, and 
who are least mindful of rendering that life an object 
worthy of care. It will be difficult, however, to tell why 
a good understanding, a resolute and generous mind, 
should not, by every man in his senses, be reckoned as 
much parts of himself as either his stomach or his palate, 
and much more than his estate or his dress. The epicure 
who consults his physician how he may restore his relish 
for food, and, by creating an appetite, renew his enjoy- 
ment, might at least, with an equal regard to himself, con- 



106 SELF-LOVE. 

suit how he might strengthen his affection to a parent or a 
child, to his country or to mankind ; and it is probable 
that an appetite of this sort would prove a source of en- 
joyment no less than the former." * 

Of the difficulty here remarked by Dr. Ferguson, the 
solution appears to me to be this, that the word selfishness, 
when applied to a pursuit, has no reference to the motive 
from which the pursuit proceeds, but to the effect it has on 
the conduct. Neither our animal appetites, nor avarice, 
nor curiosity, nor the desire of moral improvement, arise 
from self-love, but some of these active principles discon- 
nect us with society more than others ; and consequently, 
though they do not indicate a greater regard for our own 
happiness, they betray a greater unconcern about the hap- 
piness of our neighbours. The pursuits of the miser have 
no. mixture whatever of the social affections ; on the con- 
trary, they continually lead him to state his own interest 
in opposition to that of other men. The enjoyments of 
the sensualist all expire within his own person ; and, 
therefore, whoever is habitually occupied in the search of 
them must of necessity neglect the duties which he owes 
to mankind. It is otherwise with the desire of knowledge, 
which is always accompanied with a strong desire of social 
communication, and with the love of moral excellence, 
which, in its practical tendency, coincides so remarkably 
with benevolence, that many authors have attempted to 
resolve the one principle into the other. How far their 
conclusion, in this instance, is a necessary consequence of 
the premises from which it is deduced will appear here- 
after. 

The foregoing observations coincide so remarkably 
with a passage in Aristotle's Ethics, that I am tempted to 
quote it at length in the excellent English translation of 
Dr. Gillies. After stating the same inconsistencies in 
our language about self-love which Dr. Ferguson has 
pointed out, Aristotle proceeds thus : — 

" These contradictions cannot be reconciled but by dis- 
tinguishing the different senses in which man is said to love 
himself. Those who reproach self-love as a vice con- 

* Part I. Sect. II. 



SELF-LOVE. 107 

sider it only as it appears in worldlings and voluptuaries, 
who arrogate to themselves more than their due share of 
wealth, power, or pleasure. Such things are to the mul- 
titude the objects of earnest concern and eager contention, 
because the multitude regards them as prizes of the highest 
value, and, in endeavouring to attain them, strives to 
gratify its passion at the expense of its reason. This 
kind of self-love, which belongs to the contemptible mul- 
titude, is doubtless obnoxious to blame, and in this accep- 
tation the word is generally taken. But should a man 
assume a preeminence in exercising justice, temperance, 
and other virtues, though such a man has really more true 
self-love than the multitude, yet nobody would impute this 
affection to him as a crime. Yet he takes to himself the 
fairest and greatest of all goods, and those the most accep- 
table to the ruling principle in his nature, which is properly 
himself^ in the same manner as the sovereignty in every 
community is that which most properly constitutes the 
state. He is said, also, to have, or not to have, the com- 
mand of himself, just as this principle bears sway, or as it 
is subject to control ; and those acts are considered as 
most voluntary which proceed from this legislative or 
sovereign power. Whoever cherishes and gratifies this 
ruling part of his nature is strictly and peculiarly a lover of 
himself, but in a quite different sense from that in which 
self-love is regarded as a matter of reproach ; for all men 
approve and praise an affection calculated to produce the 
greatest private and the greatest public happiness ; where- 
as they disapprove and blame the vulgar kind of self-love 
as often hurtful to others, and always ruinous to those who 
indulge it." * 

* Aristotle's Ethics, Book IX. Chap. viii. 

Jouffroy accounts as follows for the appearance of self-love in human 
nature: — "The faculties, as long as they are abandoned to the impulse 
of the passions, obey that passion which happens to be the strongest at 
the time, from which a twofold inconvenience ensues. In the first 
place, the passions are of all things the most unstable, the dominion of 
one beine almost immediately supplanted by that of another, so that 
the faculties while under their exchisive control are incapable of con- 
tinuous and connected effort, and consequently nothing of importance 
is effected. And, again, the good found in the satisfaction of the domi- 
nant passion at the moment often leads to serious evil, while, on the 
other hand, the evil of its not being satisfied often results in great and 
permanent good ; from which it appears that nothing is less favorable 



108 THE MORAL FACULTY 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE MORAL FACULTY. 
Section I. 

THE MORAL FACULTY NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 

I. Duty and Interest not the same.] As some authors 
have supposed that vice consists in an excessive regard to 

to the attainment of our liighest good than this exclusive dominion of 
the passions. Reason is not slow to discover this, or to conclude from 
it that, in order to obtain the liighest possible good, our effective force 
must no longer be the prey of the mechanical impulse of the passions. 
It sees, on the contrary, how much better it would be, if, instead of 
being hurried away each instant by such impulse to the gi'atification of 
some new passion, it were freed from this constraint, and directed ex- 
clusively to the realization of the interest of all the passions taken to- 
gether, — that is to saj', the greatest good of our whole nature. More- 
over, with the same degree of clearness that our reason conceives this 
course to be wise, it also conceives it to be practicable. We are cer- 
tainly capable of judging what the highest good of our^nature is ; our 
reason enables us to do it. Equally certain is it that we can, if we 
please, take possession of our own faculties, and employ them to carry 
out this idea of our reason. That v.'e have this power has been reveal- 
ed even under the exclusive empire of passion; we have felt it in the 
spontaneous effort by which, in order to satisfy the dominant passion 
for the time being, we have concentrated all our forces on a single 
point. It is only necessary that we should do voluntarily vrhat before 
we have done spontaneously, and free will appears. No sooner is this 
great revolution conceived, than it is accomplished. A new principle 
of .action springs up within us, interest well understood, — a principle 
which is not a passion, but an idea ; not a blind and instinctive prompt- 
ing of our nature, but an intelligible, deliberate, and rational purpose ; 
not an impulse, but a motive. Finding a point of support in this motive, 
the natural power we have over our faculties takes these faculties under 
its control, and in its effort to direct them according to this motive 
shakes off the bondage of the passions, and becomes itself more and 
more developed and free. From this time our active powers are de- 
livered from the irregular, vacillating, and turbulent empire of the pas- 
sions, and become submissive to the law of reason, which considers 
what will be for the greatest possible satisfaction of our tendencies, that 
is to say, the highest good of the individual, or self-interest well under- 
stood." — Cours de Droit jXatitrel, Le(jon II. See the whole of this Lec- 
ture and the following one in the original, or in Mr. Channing's trans- 
lation. 

No writer has treated the subject of self-love with so much care 
and minuteness of discrimination as Jeremy Bentham, in the first vol- 
ume of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. 
Here we have what has been called his Moral A rithmetic, by which he 



\ 




NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 109 

our own happiness, so others have gone into the opposite 
extreme, hy representing virtue as merely a matter of pru- 
dence^ and a sense of duty but another name for a rational 
self-love. This view of the subject was far from being un- 
natural ; for we find that these two principles lead in gen- 
eral to the same course of action ; and we have every 
reason to believe, that, if our knowledge of the universe 
was more extensive, they would be found to do so in all 
instances whatever. Accordingly, by many of the best of 
the ancient moralists, our sense of duty was considered as 
resolvable into self-love, and the whole of ethics was re- 
duced to this question, What is the supreme good 9 or, in 
other words, What is most conducive, on the whole, to 
our happiness ? * 

That we have, however, a sense of duty, which is not 
resolvable into a regard to our happiness, appears from 
various considerations. 

II. First Argument. Expressed by distinct Terms in 
all Languages.] There are, in all languages, words 

thinks to determine the relative value of different " lots of" pleasure or 
pain"; and also what has been called his Moral Dynamics, or the doc- 
trine of forces, motives, or sanctions, by which self-love, and through 
that the human will, is influenced and determined in all cases. 

Paley, not content with making pleasure, considered as constituting 
human happiness, the only ultimate object of human pursuit, denies 
that the rational and moral pleasures, as such, are entitled to more re- 
gard than the rest. "In this inquiry," says he, "I will omit much 
usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the supe- 
riority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our 
constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some 
satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others ; 
because I hold that pleasures ditfer in nothing but in continuance and 
intensity." — Moral Philosophy, Book 1. Chap. vi. Dr. Whewell, in the 
Preface to his edition of Sir James Mackintosh's Dissertatiun on the 
Progress of Ethical Philosophy, says of this passage: — "If we could 
use such a term without an unbecoming disrespect towards a virtuous 
and useful writer, this opinion might properly be called brutish, since 
it recognizes no difference between the pleasures of man and those of 
the lowest animals." 

For a very original and ingenious speculation respecting the nature 
of self-love and the natural disinterestedness of the human mind, see 
Hazlitt's Essays on the Principles of Human Action. Also his Literary 
Remains, Essay X., On Self-love. 

* The same opinion, as will soon appear, has been adopted by various 
philosophers of the first eminence in England, and was long the prevail- 
ing system on the Continent. 

10 



110 THE MORAL FACULTY 

equivalent to duty and to interest, which men have con- 
stantly distinguished in their signification. They coincide 
in general in their applications, but they convey very dif- 
ferent ideas. When I wish to persuade a man to a 
particular action, I address some of my arguments to a 
sense of duty, and others to the regard he has to his own 
interest. I endeavour to show him that it is not only his 
duty, but his interest, to act in the way that I recommend 
to him. 

This distinction was expressed among the Roman moral- 
ists by the words Jionestum and utile. Of the former 
Cicero says, " Quod vere dicimus, etiamsi a nullo laudetur, 
natura esse laudabile."* 

The TO xulov among the Greeks corresponds, when 
applied to the conduct, to the honestum of the Romans. 
Dr. Reid remarks that the word y.adri/.ov [officium) ex- 
tended both to the honestum and the utile, and compre- 
hended every action performed either from a sense of 
duty, or from an enlightened regard to our true interest. f 
In English we use the word reasonable with the same 
latitude, and indeed almost exactly in the same sense in 
which Cicero defines ojjicium : — " Id quod cur factum sit 
ratio probabilis reddi potest." ij: In treating of such offices 
Cicero, and Panoetius before him, first points out those 
that are recommended to us by our love of the honestum, 
and next those that are recommended by our regard to 
the utile. 

This distinction between a sense of duty and a regard to 
interest is acknowledged even by men whose moral princi- 
ples are not the purest, nor the most consistent. What 
unlimited confidence do we repose in the conduct of one 
whom we know to be a man of honor., even in those 
cases in which he acts out of the view of the world, and 
where the strongest temptations of worldly interest concur 
to lead him astray ! We know that his heart would revolt 

^ De Offic, Lib. I. 4. " Which, though none should praise it, we 
maintain with truth to be of itself praiseworthy." 

t Essays on the Active Potcers, Essay IIL Part III. Chap. v. 

% De Offic, Lib. L3. "That, for the doing of which a reasonable mo- 
tive can be assigned." But, as Sir W. Hamilton says in a note to the 
passage in Reid, "this definition does not apply to KadfJKov or afficmm, 
in general, but only to KaOrjKov fieaov, officium comiminc." — Ed. 



NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. Ill 

at the idea of any thing base or unworthy. Dr. Reid ob- 
serves that what we call honor, considered as a principle 
of conduct, " is only another name for a regai'd to duty, to 
rectitude, to propriety of conduct." This, I think, is 
going rather too far ; for, although the two principles co- 
incide in general in the direction they give to our conduct, 
they do not coincide always ; the principle of honor being 
liable, from its nature and origin, to be most unhappily 
perverted in its applications by a bad education and the 
influence of fashion. At the same time, Dr. Reid's re- 
mark is perfectly in point, for the principle of honor is 
plainly grafted on a sense of duty, and necessarily presup- 
poses its existence. 

Dr. Paley, one of the most zealous advocates for the 
selfish system of morals, admits the fact on which the fore- 
going argument proceeds, but endeavours to evade the 
conclusion by means of a theory so extraordinary, that I 
shall state it in his own words. " There is always under- 
stood to be a difference between an act of prudence and 
an act of duty. Thus, if I distrusted a man who owed 
me a sum of money, I should reckon it an act of prudence 
to get another person bound with him ; but I should hardly 
call it an act of duty. On the other hand, it would be 
thought a very unusual and loose kind of language to say, 
that, as I had made such a promise, it was prudent to 
perform it ; or that, as my friend, when he went abroad, 
placed a box of jewels in my hands, it would be prudent 
in me to preserve it for him till he returned. 

" Now, in what, you will ask, does the difference con- 
sist, inasmuch as, according to our account of the matter, 
both in the one case and the other, in acts of duty as well 
as acts of prudence, we consider solely what we ourselves 
shall gain or lose by the act. 

" The difference, and the only difference, is this ; that 
in the one case we consider what we shall gain or lose in 
the present world ; in the other case, we consider also 
what we shall lose or gain in the world to come."* 

* Moral Philosophy, Book II. Chap. iii. It is in view of passages 
like these that Dr. Brown expresses himself with indignant severity. 
" This form of the selfish system, which has been embraced by many 
theological writers of undoubted piety and purity, is notwithstanding, 



112 THE MORAL FACULTy 

On this curious passage I have no comment to offer. 
A sufficient answer to it may, 1 trusty be derived from the 
following reasonings. In the mean time, it will be allowed 
to be at least one presumption of an essential distinction 
between the notions of duty and of interest, that there are 
different words to express these notions in all languages, 
and that the most illiterate of mankind are in no danger of 
confounding them together. 

III. Second Argument. JMoral Emotions differ from 
all others in Kind. \ But, secondly, the emotions arising 
from the contemplation of what is right and wrong in con- 
duct are different both in degree and in kind from those 
which are produced by a calm regard to our own hap- 
piness. Of this, I think, nobody can doubt, who con- 
siders with attention the operation of our moral principles 
in cases where their effects are not counteracted or modi- 
fied by a combination with some other principles of our 
nature. In judging, for example, of our own conduct, our 
moral powers are warped by the influence of self-partiality 

I cannot but think, as degrading to the human character as any other 
form of the doctrine of aljsolute selfisliness; or rather, it is in itself the 
most degrading of all the forms which tlie selfish system can assume : 
because, while the selfishness which it maintains is as absolute and un- 
remitting as if the objects of personal gain were to be found in the 
wealth, or honors, or sensual pleasures of this earth, this very selfish- 
ness is rendered more offensive by the noble image of the Deity which 
is continually presented to our mind, and presented in all his benevo- 
lence, — not to be loved, but to be courted with a mockery of affection. 
The sensualist of the common system of selfishness, who never thinks 
of any higher object in the pursuit of the little pleasures which he is 
miserable enough to regard as happiness, seems to me, even in the 
brutal stupidity in which he is sunk, a being more worthy of esteem 
than the selfish of another life ; to whose view God is ever present, but 
who view him always only to feel constantly in their heart that, in 
loving him who has been the dispenser of all these blessings which they 
have enjo^'ed, and who has revealed himself in the glorious character 
of the diffuser of an immortality of happiness, they love not tiie Giver 
himself, but only the gifts which they have received, or the gifts that 
are promised." — Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. LXXIX. Waine- 
wright endeavours to defend Paley against tliese and other charges. 
Vindication of Dr. Palei/s Theory of Morals, Chap, iv., et passim. 

The strict followers of Paley generally hold that we are indebted to 
the Christian revelation for our belief in a future retribution. If so, 
it would seem to follow from the passage in the text that none bnt 
Christians, or those who might be Christians, have any thing to do with 
"duties." — Ed. 



NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 113 

and self-deceit ; and, accordingly, we daily see men com- 
mit, without any remorse, actions, which, if performed by 
another person, they would have regarded with the liveliest 
sentiments of indignation and abhorrence. Even in this 
last case the experiment is not always perfectly fair ; for 
where the actor has been previously known to us our 
judgment is generally affected, in a greater or less degree, 
by our prepossessions or by our prejudices. In contem- 
plating the characters exhibited in histories and in novels, 
the emotions we feel are the immediate and the genuine 
result of our moral constitution ; and although they may be 
stronger in some men than in others, yet they are in all 
distinctly perceivable, even in those whose want of temper 
and of candor render them scarcely conscious of the dis- 
tinction of right and wrong in the conduct of their neigh- 
bours and acquaintance. And hence, probably, (we may 
observe by the way,) the chief origin of the pleasure we 
experience in this sort of reading. The representations 
of the stage, however, afford the most favorable of all 
opportunities for studying the moral constitution of man. 
As the mind is here perfectly indifferent to the parties 
whose character and conduct are the subject of the fable, 
the judgments it forms can hardly fail to be impartial, and 
the feelings arising from these judgments are much more 
conspicuous in their external effects than if the play were 
perused in the closet ; for every species of enthusiasm 
operates more forcibly when men are collected in a crowd. 
On such an occasion the slightest hint suggested by the 
poet raises to transport the passions of the audience, and 
forces involuntary tears from men of the greatest reserve 
and the most correct sense of propriety. The crowd 
does not create the feeling, nor even alter its nature ; it 
only enables us to remark its operation on a greater scale. 
In these cases we have surely no time for reflection ; and, 
indeed, the emotions of which we are conscious are such 
as no speculations about our own interest could possibly 
excite. It is in situations of this kind that we most com- 
pletely forget ourselves as individuals, and feel the most 
sensibly the existence of those moral ties by which Heaven 
has been pleased to bind mankind together. 
10* 



114 THE MORAL FACULTY 

IV. Third Argument. The Expediency of Virtue not 
obvious to common Experience.^ Although philosophers 
have shown that a sense of duty and an enlightened regard 
to our own happiness conspire in most instances to give 
the same direction to our conduct, so as to put it beyond 
a doubt that, even in this world, a virtuous life is true 
wisdom, yet this is a truth by no means obvious to the 
common sense of mankind, but deduced from an extensive 
view of human affairs, and an accurate investigation of the 
remote consequences of our different actions. It is from 
experience and reflection, therefore, we learn the con- 
nection between virtue and happiness ; and, consequently, 
the great lessons of morality which are obvious to the 
capacity of all mankind could never have been suggested 
to them merely by a regard to their own interest. Indeed, 
this discovery which experience makes to us of the con- 
nection between virtue and happiness, both in the case of 
individuals and of political societies, furnishes one of the 
most pleasing subjects of speculation to the philosopher, 
as it places in a striking point of view the unity of design 
which takes place in our constitution, and opens encourag- 
ing and delightful prospects with respect to the moral gov- 
ernment of the Deity. 

It is a just and beautiful observation of Dr. Reid, that 
" although wise men have concluded that virtue is the 
only road to happiness, this conclusion is founded chiefly 
upon the natural respect men have for virtue, and the 
good and happiness that is intrinsic to it, and arises from 
the love of it. If we suppose a man altogether destitute 
of this principle, who considered virtue as only the means 
to another end, there is no reason to think that he would 
ever take it to be the road to happiness, but would wander 
for ever seeking this object where it is not to be found." * 

This observation leads me to remark further, that the 
man who is most successful in the pursuit of happiness is 
not he who proposes it to himself as the great object of his 
pursuit. To do so, and to be continually occupied with 
schemes on the subject, would fill the mind with anxious 
conjectures about futurity, and with perplexing calculations 

* Essays on the. Retire Forcers, Essay III. Part III. Chap. iv. 



NOT RESOLVABLE INTO SELF-LOVE. 115 

of the various chances of good and evil. Whereas the 
man whose ruling principle of action is a sense of duty 
conducts himself in the business of life with boldness, 
consistency, and dignity, and finds himself rewarded with 
that happiness which so often eludes the pursuit of those 
who exert every faculty of the mind in order to attain it. 

Something very similar to this takes place with regard 
to nations. From the earliest accounts of mankind, politi- 
cians have been employed in devising schemes of national 
aggrandizement, and have proceeded on the supposition, 
that the prosperity of their own country could only be ad- 
vanced by depressing all others around them. It has now 
been shown, with irresistible evidence, that those views 
were founded on mistake, and that the prosperity of a 
country is intimately connected with that of its neighbours ; 
insomuch that the enlightened statesman, instead of em- 
barrassing himself with the care of a machine whose parts 
were become too complicated for any human compre- 
hension, finds his labor reduced to the simple business of 
observing the rules of justice and humanity. It is re- 
markable, that, long before the date of these profound 
speculations in politics, for which we are indebted to Mr. 
Smith and to the French economists, Fenelon was led 
merely by the goodness of his heart, and by his specula- 
tive conviction of the intimate connection between virtue 
and happiness under the moral government of God, to 
recommend a free trade as an expedient measure in policy, 
and to reprobate the mean ideas of national jealousy, as 
calculated to frustrate the very ends to which they are 
supposed to be subservient. Indeed, I am inclined to 
think, that, as in conducting the affairs of private life, "the 
integrity of the upright man" is his surest guide, so, in 
managing the affairs of a great empire, a strong sense of 
justice, and an ardent zeal for the rights and for the hap- 
piness of mankind, will go further to form a great and suc- 
cessful statesman than the most perfect acquaintance with 
political details, unassisted by the direction of these in- 
ward monitors. 

An author, too, in our own country, of sound judgment, 
and of very accurate commercial information, and who was 
one of the first in England who turned the attention of the 



116 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

public to those liberal notions concerning trade which are 
now become so prevalent, acknowledges that it was by a 
train of reasoning a priori that he was led to his conclu- 
sions. " Can we suppose," says he, "that Divine Provi- 
dence has really constituted the order of things in such a 
sort, as to make the rule of natural self-preservation incon- 
sistent with the fundamental principle of universal benevo- 
lence, and the doing as we would be done by .'' For my 
own part, I must confess, I never could conceive that an 
all-wise, just, and benevolent being would contrive one 
part of his plan to be so contradictory to the other as here 
supposed, — that is, would lay us under one obligation as 
to morals, and another as to trade ; or, in short, to make 
that to be our duty which is not, upon the whole, and 
generally speaking, (even without the consideration of a 
future state,) our interest likewise. 

" Therefore I concluded a priori that there must be 
some flaw or other in the preceding arguments, plausible 
as they seem, and great as they are on the foot of human 
authority. For though the appearance of things at first 
sight makes for this conclusion, ' that poor countries must 
inevitably carry away the trade from rich ones, and conse- 
quently impoverish them,' the fact itself cannot be so." * 

V. Fourth Argument. Moral Judgments in Children 
precede the Calculations of Prudence.] The same con- 
clusion is strongly confirmed by the early period of life 
at which our moral judgments make their appearance, long 
before children are able to form the general notion of 
happiness, and, indeed, in the very infancy of their reason. 
It is astonishing how powerfully a child of sensibility may 
be affected by any simple narration calculated to rouse the 
feelings of pity, of generosity, or of indignation, and how 
very early some minds formed in a happy mould are in- 
spired with a consciousness of the dignity of their nature, 
and glow with the enthusiasm of virtue. Dr. Beattie has 
beautifully painted these openings of the mcral character 
in the description he gives of the effect produced on his 



* Tucker's Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects, Tract 
I. p. 20. 



HARTLEY. 117 

young Edwin by the fine old ballad of the Babes in the 
Wood. 

" But when to horror his amazement rose, 

A gentler strain the beldame would rehearse, — 

A tale of rural life, a tale of woes. 

The orphan babes and guardian uncle fierce. 

O, cruel ! will no pang of pity pierce 

That heart by lust of lucre seared to stone? 

For sure, if aught of virtue last, or verse. 

To latest times shall tender souls bemoan 
Those helpless orphan babes by thy fell arts undone. 

" See where, with berries smeared, with brambles torn, 
The babes now famished lay them down to die ; 
'Midst the wild howl of darksome woods forlorn, 
Folded in one another's arms they lie, 
Nor friend, nor stranger, hears their dying cry, 
' For from the town the man returns no more.' 
But thou who Heaven's just vengeance dar'st defy, 
This deed with fruitless tears shall soon deplore. 
When death lays waste thy house, and flames consume thy store. 

" A stifled smile of stern, vivdictive joy 
Brightened one moment Edioins starting tear; — 
'But why should gold man's feeble mind decoy, 
And innocence thus die by doom severe?' 
O Edwin I while thy heart is yet sincere. 
The assaults of discontent and doubt repel ; 
Dark even at noon-tide is our mortal sphere, 
But let us hope, — to doubt is to rebel, — 
Let us exult in hope that all shall yet be well." * 



Section II. 

EXAMINATION OF HARTLEY'S THEORY OF THE FORMATION 
OF THE MORAL SENSE BY ASSOCIATION ALONE. 

I. This Theory eludes hut in Part the foregoing Argu- 
ments.'] The reasonings already stated seem to me to 
furnish a sufficient refutation of the selfish theory of morals, 
as it is explained by the greater number of the philoso- 
phers who have adopted it ; but, before leaving the sub- 
ject, it is necessary for me to take notice of a doctrine 
fundamentally the same, though modified in such a manner 

* The Minstrel, Book I. For a more extended statement of the 
proofs of man's moral nature, see Upham's Mental Philosophy, Vol. II. 
§ 207 et seq. Also, Lieber's Political Ethics, Book I. Chap. ii. — Ed. 



118 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

as to elude some of the foregoing arguments, — a doctrine 
which has been mainiained of late by various English 
writers of note, and which I suspect is at present the pre- 
vailing system in that part of the island. According to 
this doctrine we do, indeed, in many cases, approve or 
disapprove of particular actions, wnthout any reference to 
our own interest at the time ; but it is asserted that it was 
views of self-interest which originally created these moral 
sentiments, and led us to associate agreeable or disagreea- 
ble emotions with human conduct. The origin of the 
moral faculty, in the opinion of these theorists, is precisely 
analogous to that of avarice, or of any of our other facti- 
tious principles of action. Money, it will not be disputed, 
is at first desired merely on account of its subservience 
to the gratification of our natural desires ; but, in pro- 
cess of time, the association of ideas leads us to regard 
it as a desirable thing in itself, without any reference to 
this subservience or utility, and in many cases it continues 
to be coveted with an increasing passion, long after we 
have lost all relish for the enjoyments it enables us to 
purchase. In the same manner, a particular action which 
was at first approved or disapproved of, merely on account 
of its supposed tendency with respect to our own interest, 
comes, in process of time, to be approved or disapproved 
of the moment it is mentioned, and without any reflection 
on our part that we are able to recollect. Thus, v/ithout 
abandoning the old selfish principles, they contrive to 
evade the force of the arguments founded by Hutcheson 
and others on the instantaneousness with which our moral 
judgments are commonly pronounced. This, if I am not 
mistaken, is the theory of Dr. Law, of Dr. Hartley, of 
Dr. Priestley, of Dr. Paley, and of Dr. Paley's great 
oracle in philosophy, the author of the Light of JVature 
Pursued.* 

I am ready to acknowledge that this refinement on the 
old selfish system gives it a degree of plausibility which it 

* Hartley, thougli he borrowed the hint and general idea from others, 
was chiefly instrumental in giving form and currency to this theory, and 
hence it commonly goes under his name. Observations on .Man, Chap, 
iv. Sect. vi. It has found, perhaps, its ablest advocate in James Mill, 
Analysis of the Human Mind, Chap, xxiii. With both it is only part of 
a more general theory. — Ed. 



PALEr. 119 

did not originally possess, and obviates one of the objec- 
tions to it formerly stated. But it must be remembered 
that this was not the only objection, and that there are 
several others which apply both to the old and new hy- 
pothesis with equal force. 

Among these arguments, what I would lay the principal 
stress on is the degree of experience and reflection neces- 
sary for discovering the tendency of virtue to promote our 
happiness, compared with the very early period of life 
when the moral sentiments display themselves in their full 
vigor. 

II. Paley'^s Doctrine^ that JMoral Sentiments are gen- 
erated by Imitation, unsatisfactory.'] In answer to this, it 
may perhaps be alleged, that, when once moral ideas have 
been formed by the process already described, they are 
caught by infants from their parents or preceptors, by a 
sort of imitation, and without any reflection on their part. 
" There is nothing," says Dr. Paley, " which children 
imitate, or apply more readily, than expressions of affec- 
tion or aversion, of approbation, hatred, resentment, and 
the like ; and when these passions and expressions are 
once connected, (which they will soon be by the same 
association which unites words with their ideas,) the pas- 
sion will follow the expression, and attach upon the object 
to which the child has been accustomed to apply the epi- 
thet. In a word, when almost every thing else is learned 
by imitation, can we wonder to find the same cause con- 
cerned in the generation of our moral sentiments ? " * 

The plausibility of this reasoning arises entirely from 
the address with which the author introduces indirectly a 
most important fact with respect to the human mind ; a 
fact which, by engrossing the attention of the reader, is 
apt to prevent his perceiving, on a superficial view, its 
inapplicability to the point in dispute, or at least its insuffi- 
ciency to establish in its full extent the conclusion which 
is deduced from it. That imitation and the association of 
ideas have a great influence on our moral judgments and 
emotions, more particularly in our early years, every man 

* Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. v. 



120 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

must be sensible who has reflected at all on the subject ; 
and it is a fact which deserves the serious consideration of 
all who have any concern in the education of youth. But 
does it therefore follow that imitation and the association 
of ideas are sufficient to account for the origin of the 
power of moral perception, and for the origin of our 
notions of right and wrong ? * On the contrary, the ten- 
dency we have in the infancy of our reason to follow in 
our moral judgments the example of those whom we love 
and reverence, and the influence of association, sometimes 
in guiding and sometimes in misleading us in what we 
praise or blame, presuppose the existence of the power of 
moral judgment, and of the general notions of right and 
wrong. The power of these adventitious causes over the- 
mind is so great, that there is perhaps no particular prac- 
tice which we may not be trained to approve of or to con- 
demn ; but wherever this happens, the operation of these 
causes supposes us to be already in possession of some 
faculty by which we are capable of bestowing approbation 
or blame. It is worthy, too, of remark, that it is only with 
respect to particular practices that education is capable 
of misleading us ; for even when education perverts the 
judgment, it produces its effect by employing the instru- 
mentality of our moral principles. In many cases it will 
be found that it operates by combining a number of princi- 
ples against one ; by associating, for example, a number 
of worthy dispositions and amiable affections with habits 
which, if divested of such an alliance, would be regarded 
as mean and contemptible. 

To all this we may add, that our speculative judgments 
concerning truth and falsehood, as well as our judgments 
concerning right and wrong, are liable to be influenced by 
imitation and the association of ideas. Even in mathe- 



* Mr. Stewart has said in another connection. Philosophy of the Human 
Mind, First Part, Chap. v. P. ii. Sect, ii.: — " The association of ideas 
can never account for the origin of a new notion, or of a pleasure 
essentially different from all the others which we know. It may, in- 
deed, enable us to conceive how a thing indifferent in itself may become 
a source of pleasure, by being connected in the mind with something 
else which is naturally agreeable ; but it presupposes, in every instance, 
the existence of those notions and those feelings which it is its province 
to combine." — Ed. 



PALEr. 121 

matics, when a pupil of a tender age enters first on the 
study of the elements, his judgment leans not a little on 
that of his teacher, and he leels his confidence in the truth 
of his conclusions sensibly confirmed by his faith in the 
superior understanding of those whom he looks up to with 
respect. It is only by degrees that he emancipates him- 
self from this dependence, and comes at last to perceive 
the irresistible force of demonstrative evidence ; and yet 
it will not be inferred from this that the power of reasoning 
is the result of imitation or of habit. The conclusion 
mentioned above with respect to the power of moral judg- 
ment is equally erroneous. 

III. Paley''s Statement of the Question as to the Ex- 
istence of a Moral Sense.'] The looseness and sophistry 
of Paley's reasonings on the subject of the moral faculty 
may be traced to the vague and indistinct conception he 
had formed of the point in question. In proof of this I 
shall transcribe his own words from his Principles of 
Moral and Political Philosophy. It is necessary to pre- 
mise, that he introduces his argument against the existence 
of a moral sense by quoting a story from Valerius Maxi- 
mus, which I shall present to my readers in Dr. Paley's 
version. 

" The father of Caius Toranius had been proscribed 
by the Triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the 
interests of that party, discovered to the officers who were 
in pursuit of his father's life the place where he concealed 
himself, and gave them withal a description by which they 
might distinguish his person when they found him. The 
old man, more anxious for the safety and fortunes of his 
son than about the little that might remain of his own life, 
began immediately to inquire of the officers who seized 
him, whether his son was well, — whether he had done his 
duty to the satisfaction of his generals. ' That son,' replied 
one of the officers, ' so dear to thy affections, betrayed thee 
to u^ ; by his information thou art apprehended and diest.' 
The officer with this struck a poniard to his heart, and 
the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his fate 
as by the means to which he owed it." 

" Now," says Dr. Paley, " the question is, whether, if 
11 



122 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

this Story were related to the wild boy caught some years 
ago in the woods of Hanover, or to a savage witliout ex- 
perience and without instruction, cut off in his infancy 
from all intercourse with his species, and consequently 
under no possible influence of example, authority, educa- 
tion, sympathy, or habit, — whether, I say, such a one 
would feel, upon the relation, any degree of that sentiment 
of disapprobation of Toranius^s conduct which we feel, 
or not. 

" They who maintain the existence of a moral sense, of 
innate maxims, of a natural conscience, that the love of 
virtue and hatred of vice are instinctive, or the perception 
of right and wrong intuitive, (all of which are only dif- 
ferent ways of expressing the same opinion,) affirm that he 
would. 

" They who deny the existence of a moral sense, &:c., 
affirm that be would not. 

" And upon this issue is joined."* 

To those who are at all acquainted with the history of 
this dispute, it must appear evident that the question is 
here completely misstated ; and that, in the whole of Dr. 
Paley's subsequent argument on the subject, he combats 
a phantom of his own imagination. The opinion which he 
ascribes to his antagonists has been loudly and repeatedly 
disavowed by all the most eminent moralists who have dis- 
puted Locke's reasonings against innate practical princi- 
ples; and is, indeed, so very obviously absurd, that it never 
could have been for a moment entertained by any person 
in his senses. 

Did it ever enter into the mind of the wildest theorist 
to imagine that the sense of seeing would enable a man, 
brought up from the moment of his birdi in utter darkness, 
to form a conception of light and colors ? But would it 
not be equally rash to conclude, from the extravagance 
of such a supposition, that the sense of seeing is not an 
original part of the human frame ? 

The above quotation from Paley forces me to remark 
further, that, in combating the supposition of a moral sense, 
he has confounded together, as only different ways of ex- 

* Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. v. 



PALET. 123 

pressing the same opinion, a variety of systems, which are 
regarded by all our best philosophers, not only as essen- 
tially distinct, but as in some measure opposed to each 
other. The system of Hutcheson, for example, is identi- 
fied with that of Cudworth, to which (as will afterwards 
appear) it stands in direct opposition. But although, in 
this instance, the author's logical discrimination does not 
appear to much advantage, the sweeping censure thus be- 
stowed on so many of our most celebrated ethical theories 
has the merit of throwing a very strong light on that par- 
ticular view of the subject which it is the aim of his rea- 
sonings to establish in contradiction to them, all.* 

* On the subject of Paley's illustration cited in the text, Dr. Whewell 
remarks: — " I'o expect to obtain moral axioms by referring the ques- 
tion to a jury of savages, or of men nearly approaching to savages in 
prejudice, ignorance, or passion, would certainly be a very wild expecta- 
tion; and I hope it will not be considered a defect in any moral system 
to which we may be led, that it does not satisfy such an expectation as 
this. The notion, that an appeal to such a jury is the way to test moral 
axioms, is something like Paley's proposal of bringing the narration of 
an atrocious crime before Peter, the wild boy, who was bred up, or 
rather grew up, like a wild beast; and of doing this, in order to discern 
whether man has a natural abhorrence of crime. Paley himself points 
out the difficulty which makes such an experiment impossible : — 'If,' 
he says, ' he could be made to understand the story.' But it is evident 
that he could not be made to understand the story, except by growing 
up as a man among men, and ceasing to be a wild hoy. And, in like 
manner, we must say of a supposed promiscuous jury of men, by whom 
you would test our moral axioms : — If these men are so savage, and 
ignorant, and passionate, as to have in them the attributes of men im- 
perfectly unfolded, they cannot tell you what moral truths are evident to 
man as man." 

And again : — "Truths may be self-evident when we have made a 
certain progress in thinking, which are not self-evident when we begin 
to think. And this may be, not because the truths thus later discerned 
are dependent on the prerequisite truths by any logical tie, or can be 
inferred from them by argument; but because, by the train of thought by 
which we come to see those earlier gleams of truth, the mind is unfold- 
ed and instructed, so as to perceive the later and fuller light. This may 
be so, because in the process of thought thus previously gone through 
we have learnt to classify and distinguish the actions of men around us, 
or our own feelings and impulses within us. It may be that to groups 
and classes and relations of emotions and sentiments we have given 
names; and that through these names language has exercised its power 
of aiding thought, and has enabled us to see what, without such aid, we 
could not see. In these ways, and in others, moral truths may become 
evident to us, when we have made some little advance in the develop- 
ment of our moral nature, and in the power of apprehending such truth ; 
although, so long as we were half imbruted by the absence of any calm 
and continued thought on such subjects, and by the scantiness of our 



124 - THE MORAL FACULTY. 



Section III. 



THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF HUMAN NATURE NOT DIS- 
PROVED BY THE DIVERSITY IN MEn's MORAL JUDGMENTS. 

I. How far and in what Way our JMoral J^alure may 
he affected by Education-I In the preceding observations 
I have endeavoured to prove that the moral faculty is an 
original principle of our constitution, which is not resolva- 

acquaintance with those relations among men which are the materials 
for such thought, we were insensible to the evidence which now seems 
so glaring. It requires a culture of the human mind to malve that evi- 
dent wiiich, nevertheless, is evident by the nature of the human mind. 
" And, in truth, we cannot lielp asliing why we should go to savages 
for the genuine voice of human nature. Why should it be supposed 
that men are more properly men, because in them some of the most 
important attributes of humanity remain latent and undeveloped? If 
cultured men see, as evident in morals, what savages do not see as evi- 
dent, are not cultured men still vien? And all that they know and 
think, in addition to what savages know and think, did they not come 
to know it by the use of their human faculties.' The early Romans 
called every stranger an enemy; every peregrinus was kostis. The later 
Romans filled the theatre with thunders of applause, when the poet 
made the actor say, 

^ Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.' 

Which of these two was the genuine voice of humanity ? Was not the 
latter evidently the assent to the irresistible evidence of a moral truth.' 
Was that earlier practical denial of this moral truth really the utterance 
of a moral conviction ? W^as it not an utterance which came from man, 
not as the utterance of conviction, but of uncontrolled fear and anger.' 
not an articulate utterance in the name of humanity, but an inarticulate 
cry, borrowing part of its import from the ferine nature of the nation .' 
It was a trace of the wolf's milk." — Lectures on Systematic Morality, 
Lect II. pp. 34, 38. See also Lieber's Political Ethics, Book II. Chap, 
iii., and Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies of the University, pp. 57 et 
seq., and Appendix (E). 

" Peter the Wild Boy " made a great noise among scientific men in 
the early part of the last century. "Swift has immortalized him in his 
humorous production, It cannot rain, but it pours ; or, London strcired 
with Rarities. Linnaeus gave him a niche in the Systema Katurce, under 
the denomination of Juvenis Hanoveranus ; Buffbn, De Paauvv, and J. 
J. Rousseau have extolled him as the true child of nature, the genuine 
unsophisticated inan. Monboddo is still more enthusiastic, declaring 
his appearance to be a much more important occurrence than the dis- 
covery of the planet Uranus." — Lawrence's Natural History of Man, 
Chap. ii. He turned out to be an idiotic bo}', who had been lost in the 
woods, or driven into them and abandoned, about a year before he was 
brought into such notice. — Ed. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 125 

ble into any other principle or principles more general 
than itself ; in particular, that it is not resolvable into self- 
love, or a prudential regard to our own interest. In 
Qrder, however, completely to establish the existence of 
the moral faculty as an essential and universal part of 
human nature, it is necessary to examine with attention 
the objections which have been stated to this conclusion 
by some writers, who were either anxious to display their 
ingenuity by accounting in a different manner for the origin 
of our moral ideas, or who wish to favor the cause of 
skepticism by explaining away the reality and immutability 
of moral distinctions. 

Among these objections, that which merits the most 
careful consideration, from the characters of those by 
whom it is maintained, is founded on the possibility of ex- 
plaining the fact without increasing the number of original 
principles in our constitution. The rules of morality, it 
has been supposed, were, in the first instance, brought to 
light by the sagacity of philosophers and politicians ; and 
it is only in consequence of the influence of education that 
they appear to form an original part of the human frame. 
The diversity of opinions among different nations with 
respect to the morality of particular actions has been con- 
sidered as a strong confirmation of this doctrine. 

But the power of educat>ion, although great, is confined 
within certain limits. It is, indeed, much more extensive 
than philosophers once believed, as sufficiently appears 
from those modern discoveries, with respect to the distant 
parts of the globe, which have so wonderfully enlarged our 
knowledge of human nature, and which show clearly that 
many sentiments and opinions, which had been formerly 
regarded as inseparable from the nature of man, are the 
results of accidental situation. If our forefathers, how- 
ever, went into one extreme on this point, we seem to be 
at present in no small danger of going into the opposite 
one, by considering man as entirely a factitious being, that 
may be moulded into any form by education and fashion. 

I have said that the power of education is confined 

within certain limits. The reason is obvious, for it is by 

cooperating with the natural principles of the mind that 

education produces its effects. Nay, this very suscepti- 

11* 



126 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

bility of education, which is acknowledged to belong uni- 
versally to the race, presupposes the existence of certain 
principles which are common to all mankind. 

The influence of education in diversifying the appear- 
ances which the moral constitution of man exhibits in dif- 
ferent instances depends chiefly on that law of our consti- 
tution which was formerly called the association of ideas ; 
and this law supposes, in every case, that there are opin- 
ions and feelings essential to the human frame, by a com- 
bination with which external circumstances lay hold of the 
mind, and adapt it to its accidental situation. What we 
daily see happen in the trifling article of dress may help us 
to conceive how the association of ideas operates in mat- 
ters of more serious consequence. Fashion, it is well 
known, can reconcile us, in the course of a few weeks, to 
the most absurd and fantastical ornament ; but does it fol- 
low from this that fashion could create our ideas of beauty 
and elegance ? During the time we have seen this orna- 
ment worn, it has been confined, in a great measure, to 
those whom we consider as models of taste, and has been 
gradually associated with the impressions produced by'the 
real elegance of their appearance and manner. When it 
pleases by itself, the effect is not to be ascribed to the 
thing considered abstractedly, nor to any change which 
our general notions of beautyjiave undergone, but to the 
impressions with which it has been generally connected, 
and which it naturally recalls to the mind. The case is 
nearly the same with our moral sentiments. A man of 
splendid virtues attracts some esteem also to his imperfec- 
tions, and, if placed in a conspicuous situation, may cor- 
rupt the moral sentiments of the multitude in the same 
manner in which he may introduce an absurd or fantastical 
ornament by his whimsical taste in the articles of dress. 
The commanding influence of Cato's virtues seems to 
have produced somewhat of this effect on the minds of 
some of his admirers. He was accused, we are told, of 
intemperance in wine ; nor do his apologists pretend 
altogether to deny the charge. " But," says one of them, 
" it would be much easier to prove that intemperance is a 
decent and respectable quality than that Cato could be 
guilty of any vice." " Catoni ebrietas objecta est ; et 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 127 

facilius efficiet, quisquis objecerit, hoc crimen honestum, 
quam turpem Catonem." 

In general it may be remarked, that, as education may- 
vary in particular cases the opinions of individuals with 
respect to the objects of taste, without being able to create 
our notions of beauty or deformity, of grandeur or mean- 
ness, so education may vary our sentiments with respect 
to particular actions, but could not create our notions of 
right and wrong, of merit and demerit.* 



* It is observed by Condorcet in his Eloge on Euler, " That, if we 
except the common maxims of morality, there is no one truth which can 
boast of iiaving been so generally adopted, or through such a succession 
of ages, as certain ridiculous and pernicious errors." The assertion, 
although not without some foundation in fact, is manifestly expressed 
by this author in terms too strong and unqualified. I quote it here 
chiefly on account of the remarkable concession which it involves in 
favor of the fundamental principles of morality ; — a subject on which it 
has been generally alleged, by skeptical writers, that our opinions are 
more liable than on most others to be warped by the influence of edu- 
cation and fashion. 

[Sir James Mackintosh is a strenuous asserter of the general uni- 
formity of men's moral judgments. " 1 do not speak of the theory of 
morEiJs, but of the rule of life. First examine the fact, and see whether, 
from the earliest times, any improvement, or even any change, has been 
made in the practical rules of human conduct. Look at the code of 
Moses. I speak of it now as a mere human composition, without con- 
sidering its sacred origin. Considering it merely in that light, it is the 
most ancient and the most curious memorial of the early history of man- 
kind. More than three thousand years have elapsed since the compo- 
sition of the Pentateuch; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in 
what important respects the rule of life has varied since that distant 
period. Let the Institutes of Menu be explored with the same view ; 
we shall arrive at the same conclusion. Let the books of false religion 
be opened ; it will be found that their moral system is, in all its grand 
features, the same. The impostors who composed them were compelled 
to pay this homage to the uniform moral sentiments of the world. 
Examine the codes of nations, those authentic depositories of the moral 
judgments of men ; you everywhere find the same rules prescribed, 
the same duties imposed : even the boldest of those ingenious skeptics 
who have attacked every other opinion has spared the sacred and im- 
mutable simplicity of the rules of life. In our common duties, Bayle 
and Hume agree with Bossuet and Barrow. Such as the rule was at 
the first dawn of history, such it continues till the present day. Ages 
roll over mankind; mighty nations pass away like a shadow; virtue 
alone remains the same, immortal and unchangeable." — Memoirs, by his 
Son, Vol. I. Chap. iii. p. 120, 

Even should we think that the statement, as here made, needs fur- 
ther qualification, there can be no doubt that the common opinion 
errs still more on the other side. One reason why the points of dif- 
ference in morals are thought to be more numerous than they really 
are is, that these alone are made the subject of frequent discussion j 



128 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

II. Diversity in Men^s Moral Judgments.] With re- 
spect to the historical facts which have been quoted as 
proofs that the moral judgments of mankind are entirely 
factitious, we may venture to assert in general, that none 
of them justify so very extravagant a conclusion ; that a 
great part of them are the effects of misrepresentation ; 
and that others lead to a conclusion directly the reverse 
of what has been drawn from them. It would hardly be 
necessary, in the present times, to examine them serious- 
ly, were it not for the authority which, in the opinion of 
many, they still continue to derive from the sanction of 
Mr. Locke. 

"Have there not been whole nations," says this emi- 
nent philosopher, "and those of the most civilized peo- 
ple, among whom the exposing their children, and leaving 
them in the fields to perish by want or wild. beasts, has 
been the practice, as little condemned or scrupled as the 
begetting them .'' Do they not still, in some countries, put 
them into the same graves with their mothers, if they die in 
child-birth, or despatch them, if a pretended astrologer 
declares them to have unhappy stars ? And are t)iere 
not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose 
their parents without any remorse at all ? Where, then, 
are our innate ideas of justice, piety, gratitude ; or where 
is that universal consent that assures us there are such 
inbred rules ? " * 

To this question of Locke's so satisfactory an answer 
has been given by various writers, that it would be super- 
fluous to enlarge on the subject here. It is sufiicient to 
refer, on the origin of infanticide^ to ]Mr. Smith's The- 
ory of JMoral Sentiments ; f and on the alleged impiety 
among some rude tribes of children towards their parents.^ 
to Charron Sur la Sagesse,^ and to an excellent note of 
Dr. Seattle's in his Essay on Fable and Romance. The 

and properly so, because it is only in this way that they can be cleared 
up, and harmony, as a consequence, be established or restored. — Ed.] 

* Book I. Chap. iii. § 9. 

t Part V. Chap. ii. 

I Liv. II. Chap. viii. Charron's argument is evidently pointed at cer- 
tain passages in Montaigne's £5501/5, in which that ingenious writer has 
fallen into a train of thought very similar to that which is the ground- 
work of Locke's reasonings against innate practical principles. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 129 

reasonings of the last two writers are strongly confirmed 
by Mr. Ellis, in his Voyage for the Discovery of a JVorth- 
west Passage, and by Mr. Curtis (afterwards Sir Roger 
Curtis), in a paper containing Some Particulars with re- 
spect to the Country of Labradore, published in the Phil- 
osophical Transactions for the year 1773. 

In order to form a competent judgment on facts of this 
nature, it is necessary to attend to a variety of considera- 
tions which have been too frequently overlooked by philos- 
ophers ; and, in particular, to make proper allowances for 
the three following : — 

1. For the different situations in which mankind are 
^placed, pardy by the diversity in their physical circum- 
stances, and partly by the unequal degrees of civilization 
which they have attained. 

2. For the diversity of their speculative opinions, 
arising from their unequal measures of knowledge or of 
capacity ; and, 

3. For the different moral import of the same action 
under different systems of external behaviour. 

III. First Cause of Diversity in Menh Moral Judg- 
ments. Difference of Condition. {\ .) As regards Proper- 
ty.^ In a part of the globe where the soil and climate 
are so favorable as to yield all the necessaries and many 
of the luxuries of life with little or no labor on the part of 
man, it may reasonably be expected that the ideas of men 
will be more loose concerning the rights of property than 
where nature has been less liberal in her gifts. As the 
right of property is founded, in the first instance, on the 
natural sentiment, that the laborer is entitled to the fruits 
of his oion labor, it is not surprising that, where litde or 
no labor is required for the gratification of our desires, 
theft should be regarded as a very venial offence. There^ 
is here no contradiction in the moral judgments of man- 
kind. Men feel there, with respect to those articles 
which we appropriate with the most anxious care, as we, 
in this part of the world, feel with respect to air, light, 
and water. If a country could be found in which no in- 
justice was apprehended in depriving an individual of an 
enjoyment which he had provided for himself by a long 



130 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

course of persevering industry, the fact would be some- 
thing to the purpose. But this^ we may venture to say, 
has not yet been found to be the case in any quarter of the 
globe. That the circumstance I have mentioned is the true 
explanation of the prevalence of theft in the South Sea 
Islands, and of the venial light in which it is there regard- 
ed, appears plainly from the accounts of our most intelli- 
gent navigators. 

" There was another circumstance," says Captain 
Cook, speaking of the inhabitants of the Sandwich Isl- 
ands, " in which the people perfectly resembled the other 
islanders we had visited. At first, on their entering the 
ship, they endeavoured to steal every thing they came near, 
or rather to take it openly, as ivhat we either should not re- 
sent, or not hinder.''^ (January, 1778.) 

In another place, talking of the same people : — " These 
islanders," says he, " merited our best commendations in 
their commercial intercourse, never once attempting to 
cheat us, either ashore or alongside the ships. Some of 
them, indeed, as already mentioned, at first betrayed a 
thievish disposition ; or rather, they thought that they had 
a right to every thing they could lay their hands on ; but 
they soon laid aside a conduct which we convinced them 
they could not persevere in with impunity." 

In another part of the voyage, (April 1778,) in which 
he gives an account of the American Indians near King 
George's Sound, he contrasts their notions on the subject 
of theft with those of the South Sea Islanders. " The 
inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, rather than be idle, 
would steal any thing they could lay their hands on, with- 
out ever considering whether it could be of use to them or 
no. The novelty of the object was with them a sufficient 
motive for endeavouring, by any indirect means, to get 
^ possession of it ; which marked, that in such cases they 
were rather actuated by a childish curiosity than by a dis- 
honest disposition, regardless of the modes of supplying 
real wants. The inhabitants of Nootka, who invaded our 
property, have not such an apology. They were thieves 
in the strictest sense of the word ; for they pilfered nothing 
from us but what they knew could be converted to the 
purposes of private utility, and had a real value, according 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 131 

to their estimation of things." He adds, that "he had 
abundant proof tliat steahng is much practised among them- 
selves " ; — but it is evident, from the manner in which 
he expresses himself, that theft was not here considered in 
the same venial or indifferent light as in those parts of the 
globe where the bounty of nature deprives exclusive prop- 
erty of almost all its value.* 

In general it will be found, that the ideas of rude nations 
on the subject of -property are precise and decided, in 
proportion to the degree of labor to which they have been 
habituated in procuring the means of subsistence. Of 
one barbarous people, (the Greenlanders,) we are ex- 
pressly told by a very authentic writer, (Crantz,) that their 
regard to property acquired by labor is not only strict, but 
approaches to superstition. " Not one of them," says he, 
"will appropriate to himself a sea-dog in which he finds 
one or more harpoons with untorn thongs ; nor even carry 
away drift wood, or other things thrown up by the sea, if 
they are covered with a stone, because they consider this 
as an indication that they have already been appropriated 
by some other person." f 

IV. (2.) As regards the Uses of Money.'] Another 
very remarkable instance of an apparent diversity in the 
moral judgments of mankind occurs in the contradictory 
opinions entertained by different ages and nations on the 
moral lawfulness of exacting interest for the use of money. 
Aristotle, in the first book of his Politics (6th chap.), 
speaking of the various ways of getting money, considers 

* See, also, Anderson's Remarks, February, 1777, and December, 
1777. 

t The following passage of Voltaire is perhaps liable to the charge of 
over-refinement ; but it sufficiently shows that he saw clearly the gen- 
eral principle on which the lax opinions of some nations on the subject 
of theft are to be explained. 

" On a beau nous dire, qu'a Lacedemone, le larcin etoit ordonne ; 
ce n'est la qu'un abus des mots. La meme chose que nous appellons 
larcin, n'etoit point commandee a Lacedemone ; mais dans une ville, 
ou tout etoit en commun, la permission qu'on donnoit de prendre ha- 
bilement ce que des particuliers s'approprioient centre la loi, etoit une 
maniere de punir I'esprit de propriete defendu chez ces peuples. Le 
tien ft le mien etoit un crime, dont ce que nous appellons larcin etoit la 
punition." — Yo\ta\Te''s Account of JVeictons Discoveries. Some of his 
other remarks on Locke are very curious. 



132 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

agriculture and the rearing of cattle as honorable and 
natural, because the earth itself, and all animals, are by 
nature fruitful; " but to make money from money, which 
is barren and unfruitful," he pronounces " to be the-vvorst 
of all modes of accumulation, and the utmost corruption 
of artificial degeneracy. By commerce," he observes, 
" money is perverted from the purpose of exchange to 
that of gain. Still, however, this gain is obtained by the 
mutual transfer of different objects ; but usury, by trans- 
ferring merely the same object from one hand to another, 
generates money from money ; and the interest thus gen- 
erated is therefore called ' offspring,' as being precisely of 
the same nature, and of the same specific substance, with 
that from which it proceeds." * — Similar sentiments with 
respect to usury (under which title was comprehended 
every premium, great or small, which was received by 
way of interest) occur in the Roman writers. " Concern- 
ing the arts'," says Cicero, in his first book De Officiis, 
"and the means of acquiring wealth which are to be ac- 
counted liberal, and which mean, the following are the 
sentiments usually entertained. In the first place, those 
means of gain are in the least credit which incur the hatred 
of mankind, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers." The 
same author, (in the second book of the same work,) 
mentions an anecdote of old Cato, who, being asked what 

* Gillies's Translation. The argument of Aristotle is so extremely 
absurd and puerile, that it could never have led this most acute and 
profound philosopher to the conclusion it is employed to support, but 
may be justly numbered among the instances in which speculative men 
have exerted their ingenuity to defend, by sophistical reasonings, the 
established prejudices of the times in which they lived, and in which 
the supposed evidence of the inference has served, in their estimation, to 
compensate for the weakness of the premises. It is, however, worthy 
of remark, that the argument, such as it is, was manifestly suggested by 
the etymology of the word rd/co? (interest), from the verb riKTm^ pario, 
to breed or bring forth; an etymology which seems to imply that \he 
principal generates the interest. The same idea, too, occurs in the 
scene between Antonio and Shy lock, in the Merchant of Venice: — 

"If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not 
As to thy friends ; (for when did friendship take 
ji breed of barren melal from his friend .-') 
But lend it rather to thine enemy. 
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face 
Exact the penalties." 

Act I. Scene iii. 



DIVERSITr IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 133 

he thought of fending money upon interest, answered, 
" What do you think of the crime of murder ? " 

In the code of the Jewish legislator, the regulations con- 
cerning loans imply manifestly, that to exact a premium 
for the thing lent was an act of unkindness unsuitable to 
the fraternal relation in which the Israelites stood to one 
another. " Thou shalt not lend," it is said, " upon usury 
to thy brother : usury of money, usury of victuals, usury 
of any thing that is lent upon usury. Unto a stranger 
thou raayest lend upon usury ; but unto thy brother thou 
shalt not lend upon usury ; that the Lord thy God may 
bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to, in the 
land whither thou goest to possess it." * 

In consequence of this prohibition in the Mosaic law, 
the primitive Christians, conceiving that they ought to look 
on all men, both Jews and Gentiles, as brethren, inferred, 
(partly, perhaps, from the prohibition given by Moses, and 
partly from the general prejudices then prevalent against 
usury,) that it was against the Christian law to take inter- 
est from any man. And, accordingly, there is no crime 
against which the Fathers in their homilies declaim with 
more vehemence. The same abhorrence of usury of 
every kind appears in the canon law, insomuch that the 
penalty by that law is excommunication ; nor is the usurer 
allowed burial until he has made restitution of what he got 
by usury, or security is given that restitution shall be made 
after his death. About the middle of the seventeenth 
century, we find the divines of the Church of England 
very often preaching against all interest for the use of 
money, even that which the law allowed, as a gross im- 
morality. And not much earlier it was the general opinion, 
both of divines and lawyers, that, although law permitted 
a certain rate of interest to prevent greater evils, and in 
compliance with the general corruption of men, (as the 
law of Moses permitted polygamy, and authorized divorce 
for slight causes, among the Jews,) yet that the rules of 
morality did not sanction the taking any interest for money ; 
at least that it was a very doubtful point whether they did. 
The same opinion was maintained in the English House 

" Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. 
12 



134 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

of Commons by some of the members who were lawyers, 
in the debate upon a bill brought in not rnuch more than a 
hundred years ago. 

I need not remark how completely the sentiments of 
mankind are now changed upon the subject ; insomuch 
that a moralist or divine would expose himself to ridicule 
if he should seriously think it worth his while to use argu- 
ments to prove the lawfulness of a practice which was 
formerly held in universal abhorrence. The consistency 
of this practice (in cases where the debtor is able to pay 
the interest) with the strictest morality appears to us so 
manifest and indisputable, that it vfould be thought equally 
absurd to argue for it as against it.* 

The diversity of judgments, however, on this particular 
question, instead of proving a diversity in the moral judg- 
ments of mankind, aflbrds an illustration of the uniformity 
of their opinions concerning the fundamental rules of moral 
duty. 

In a state where there is little or no commerce, the 
great motive for borrowing being necessity, the value of a 
loan cannot be ascertained by calculation, as it may be 
where money is borrowed for the purposes of trade. In 
such circumstances, therefore, every money-lender who 
accepts of interest will be regarded in the same odious 
light in which pawnbrokers are considered among us ; 
and the man " who putteth out his money to usury " will 
naturally be classed (as he is in the words of Scripture) 
with him who " taketh reward against the innocent." f 

* A learned gentleman, indeed, of the Middle Temple, Mr Plow- 
den, (a lawyer, 1 believe, of the Roman Catholic persuasion,) who pub- 
lished, about thirty years ago, a Treatise vpon the Laic of Usury and 
jjnnuilies, has employed no less than fifty-nine pages of his work in 
considering the law of usury in a spiritual view, in order to establish the 
following conclusion : — "That it is not sinful, but lawful, for a British 
subject to receive legal interest for the money he may lend, whether he 
receive it in annual dividends from the public, or in interest from 
private individuals who may have borrowed it upon mortgage, bond, or 
otherwise " M. Necker, too, in the notes annexed to his Eloge on 
Colbert, thought it necessary for him to oifer an apology to the Church 
of Rome for the freedom with which he ventured to write upon this 
critical subject. " Ce que je dis de inter^t est sous un point de vue 
politique, et n'a point de rapport avec les respectables maximes de la 
religion sur ce point." 

t Ps. XV. 5. 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 135 

These considerations, while they account for the origin 
of the opinions concerning the practice of taking interest 
for money among those natioas of antiquity whose com- 
mercial transactions were few and insignificant, will be 
sufficient, at the same time, to establish its reasonableness 
and equity in countries where money is most commonly 
borrowed for the purposes of commercial profit, and where, 
of consequence, the use of it has a fixed and determinate 
value, depending (like that of any commodity in general 
request) on the circumstances of the market at the time. 
In such countries both parties are benefited by the trans- 
action, and even the state is a gainer in the end. The 
lenders of money are frequently widows and orphans, who 
subsist on the interest of their slender funds, while the 
borroicers as frequently belong to the most opulent class 
of the community, who wish to enlarge their capital and 
extend their trade ; and who, by doing so, are enabled to 
give further encouragement to industry, and to supply 
labor and bread to the indigent. 

The prejudices, therefore, against usury among the 
ancient philosophers were the natural result of the state of 
society which fell under their observation. The prohibi- 
tion of usury among the Jews in their own mutual transac- 
tions, while they were permitted to take a premium for the 
money which they lent to strangers, was in perfect con- 
sistency with the other principles of their political code ; 
commerce being interdicted as tending to an intercourse 
with idolaters, and mortgages prevented by the indefeasi- 
ble right which every man had to his lands. 

V. (3.) Want of an Efficient Police.'] I shall only 
mention one instance more to illustrate the efl^ects of dif- 
ferent states of society in modifying the moral judgments 
of mankind. It relates to the crime of assassination, which 
we now justly consider as the most dreadful of any ; but 
which must necessarily have been viewed in a very dif- 
ferent light when laws and magistrates were unknown, and 
when the only check on injustice was the principle of 
resentment. As it is the nature of this principle, not only 
to seek the punishment of the delinquent, but to prompt 
the injured person to inflict the punishment with his own 



136 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

hand, so in every country the criminal jurisdiction of the 
magistrate lias been the last branch of his authority that 
was established. Where the police, therefore, is weak, 
murders must not only be more frequent, but are really 
less criminal^ than in a society like ours, where the pri- 
vate rights of individuals are completely protected by law, 
and where there hardly occurs an instance, excepting in a 
case of self-defence, in which one man can be justified for 
shedding the blood of another. And even when, in a 
rude age, a murder is committed from unjustifiable mo- 
tives of self-interest or jealousy, yet the frequency of the 
occurrence prevents the minds of men from revolting so 
strongly at the sight of blood as we do at present. It is 
on this very principle that Mr. Mitford accounts for the 
manners and ideas that prevailed in the heroic ages of 
Greece. 

But it is unnecessary, on this head, to appeal to the his- 
tory of early times, or of distant nations. In our own 
country of Scotland, about two centuries ago, what shock- 
ing murders were perpetrated, and seemingly without re- 
morse, by men who were by no means wholly destitute of 
a sense of religion and morahty ! Dr. Robertson remarks, 
that " Buchanan relates the murder of Cardinal Beatoun 
and of Rizzio without expressing those feelings which are 
natural to a man, or that indignation which became an 
historian. Knox, whose mind was fiercer and more un- 
polished, talks of the death of Beatoun and of the Duke of 
Guise, not only without censure, but with the utmost ex- 
ultation. On the other hand, the Bishop of Ross men- 
tions the assassination of the Earl of Murray with some 
degree of applause. Blackwood dwells on it with the 
most indecent triumph ; and ascribes it directly to the 
hand of God. Lord Ruthven, the principal actor in the 
conspiracy against Rizzio, wrote an account of it some 
time before his own death ; and in all his long narrative 
there is not one expression of regret, or one symptom of 
compunction, for a crime no less dishonorable than bar- 
barous. INIorton, equally guilty of the same crime, enter- 
tained the same sentiments concerning it ; and in his last 
moments, neither he himself, nor the ministers who attended 
him, seem to have considered it as an action which called 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 137 

for repentance. Even then he talks of 'David's slaugh- 
ter ' as coolly as if it had been an innocent or commenda- 
ble deed." * 

The reflections of Dr. Robertson on these assassina- 
tions, which were formerly so common in this country, are 
candid and judicious. " In consequence of the limited 
power of our princes, the administration of justice was 
extremely feeble and dilatory. An attempt to punish the 
crimes of a chieftain, or even of his vassals, often excited 
rebellions and civil wars. To nobles haughty and inde- 
pendent, among whom the causes of discord were many 
and unavoidable ; who were quick in discerning an injury, 
and impatient to revenge it ; who esteemed it infamous to 
submiit to an enemy,' and cowardly to forgive him ; who 
considered the right of punishing those who had injured 
them as a privilege of their order, and a mark of indepen- 
dency ; such slow proceedings were extremely unsatisfac- 
tory. The blood of their adversary was, in their opinion, 
the only thing that could wash away an affront. Where 
that was not shed, their revenge was disappointed ; their 
courage became suspected, and a stain was left on their 
honor. That vengeance which the impotent hand of the 
magistrate could not inflict their own could easily execute. 
Under a government so feeble, men assumed, as in a state 
of nature, the right of judging and redressing their own 
wrongs. And thus assassination, a crime of all others the 
most destructive to society, came not only to be allowed, 
but to be deemed honorable." In another passage he ob- 
serves, that " mankind became thus habituated to blood, 
not only in times of war, but of peace ; and from this, as 

* History of Scotland, Book IV. The following lines, in whicli Sir 
David Lindsay reprobates ttie murder of his contemporary and enemy, 
Cardinal Beatoun, deserve to be added to the instances quoted by Dr. 
Robertson, as an illustration of the moral sentiments of our ancestors. 
They are expressed with a na'iveti which places in a strong light both 
the moral and religious principles of that age. 

" As for this Cardinal, I grant. 
He was a man we well might want; 

God will forgive it soon : 
But of a sooth, the truth to say, 
Altho' the loun be well away, 
The act was foully done." 
12* 



138 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

well as other causes, contracted an amazing ferocity of 
temper and of manners." 

VI. Second Cause of Diversity inJ\Fen''s Moral Judg- 
ments. Difference in Speculative Opinions.l The second 
cause I mentioned of the apparent diversity among man- 
kind in their moral judgments is the diversity in their spec- 
ulative opinions. 

The manner in which this cause operates will appear 
obvious if it be considered that nature, by the suggestions 
of our moral principles, only recommends to us particular 
ends, but leaves it to our reason to ascertain the most 
effectual means by which these ends are to be attained. 
Thus nature points out to us our own happiness, and also 
the happiness of our fellow-creatures, as objects towards 
the attainment of which our best exertions ought to be di- 
rected ; but she has left us to exercise our reason, both in 
ascertaining what the constituents of 'happiness are, and 
how they may be most completely secured. Hence, ac- 
cording to the different points of view in which these sub- 
jects of consideration may appear to different understand- 
ings, there must of necessity be a diversity of judgments 
with respect to the morality of the same actions. One 
man, for example, believes that the happiness of society 
is most effectually consulted by an implicit obedience in 
all cases to the will of the civil magistrate. Another, that 
the mischiefs to be apprehended from resistance and insur- 
rection in cases of urgent necessity are trifling when com- 
pared with those which mav result to ourselves and our 
posterity from an established despotism. The former 
will of course be an advocate for the duty of passive obedi- 
ence ; the latter for the right, and, in certain supposable 
cases, for the obligation of resistance. Both of these men, 
however, agree in the general principle, that it is our duty 
to promote to the utmost of our power the happiness of 
society ; and they differ from each other only on a specu- 
lative question of expediency. 

In like manner, there is a wide diversity between the 
moral systems of ancient and modern times on the subject 
of suicide. Both, however, agree in this, that it is the 
duty of man to obey the will of his Creator, and to consult 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 139 

every intimation of it that his reason can discover, as the 
supreme law of his conduct. They differed only in their 
speculative opinions concerning the interpretation of the 
will of God, as manifested by the dispensations of his 
providence in the events of human life. The prejudices 
of the ancients on this subject were indeed founded in a 
very partial and erroneous view of circumstances (aris- 
ing, however, not unnaturally, from the unsettled state of 
society in the ancient republics) ; but they only afford an 
additional instance of the numerous mistakes to which 
human reason is liable ; not of a fluctuation in the judg- 
ments of mankind concerning the fundamental rules of 
moral duty.* 

VII. Third Cause of Diversity in J\Ie7i''s Moral Judg- 
ments. Different Systems of Behaviour.^ The different 
moral import, too, of the same material action, under dif- 
ferent systems of external behaviour, deserves particular 
attention, in forming an estimate of the moral sentiments of 
different ages and nations. 

This difference is chiefly owing to two causes : — First, 
to the different conceptions of happiness and misery, — 
of what is to be desired and shunned, — which men are 
led to form in different states of society. Secondly, to 
the effect of accident, which, as it leads men to speak dif- 
ferent languages in diffierent countries, so it leads them to 
express the same dispositions of the heart by different 
external observances. 

1. Where the opinions of mankind vary concerning the 
external circumstances that constitute happiness, the ex- 
ternal expressions of benevolence must vary of course. 
Thus, in the fact referred to by Locke concerning the 
Indians in the neighbourhood of Hudson's Bay, the wishes 
of the aged parent being different from what we are ac- 
customed to observe in this part of the world, the marks 
of filial affection on the part of the child must vary also. 
" In some countries honor is associated with suffering, and 

* See Lieber's Political Ethics, B. I. Sect, xviii., where the conduct 
of the Thugs of India — a fanatical sect pursuing murder as a trade, and 
under the supposed sanction of religion — is reconciled with the moral 
constitution of human nature. — Ed. 



140 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

it is reckoned a favor to be killed wiih circumstances of 
torture. Instances of this occur in the manners of some 
American nations, and in the pride which an Indian ma- 
tron feels when placed on the funeral pile of her deceased 
husband."* In such cases an action may have to us all 
the external marks of extreme cruelty, while it proceeded 
from a disposition generous and affectionate. 

2. A difference in the moral import of the same action 
often arises from the same accidental causes which lead 
men, in different yjarts of the globe, to express the same 
ideas by different arbitrary signs. 

What happens in the trifling forms and ceremonies of 
behaviour may serve to illustrate the operation of the same 
causes on more important occasions. " In the general 
principles of urbanity, politeness, or civility, we may ven- 
ture to assert that the opinions of all' nations are agreed ; 
but in the expression of this disposition, we meet with 
endless varieties. In Europe, it is the form of respect to 
uncover the head ; in Japan, the corresponding form is 
said to be to uncover the foot by dropping the slipper. f 
Persons unacquainted with any language but their own are 
apt to think the words they use natural and fixed expres- 
sions of things ; while the words of a different language 
they consider as mere jargon, or the result of caprice. In 
the same manner, forms of behaviour different from their 
own appear offensive and irrational, or a perverse substi- 
tution of absurd for reasonable manners. 

" Among the varieties of this sort, we find actions, ges- 
tures, and forms of expression, in their own nature indif- 
ferent, entered into the code of civil or religious duties, 
and enforced under the strongest sanctions of public cen- 
sure or esteem ; or under the strongest denunciations of 
the Divine indignation or favor. 

" Numberless ceremonies and observances in the ritual 

* Ferguson's Moral and Political Science, Part II. Chap. ii. S#ct. iv. 
[For facts in confirmation of this doctrine, see Historical Illustrations of 
the Passions, particular!}' Vol. I. Chap. iii. and iv.] 

t "Even here," Sir Joshua Reynolds ingeniously remarks, "we 
may perhaps observe a general idea running through all the varieties ; 
to wit, the general idea of making the bod}' less in token of respect, 
whether by bowing tJie body, kneeling, prostration, pulling off the up- 
per part of the dress, or throwing aside the lower." 



DIVERSITY IN ITS JUDGMENTS. 141 

of different sects are to be accounted for on the same 
principles which produce the diversity of names or signs 
for the same thing in the vocabulary of different languages. 
Thus, the generality of Christians when they pray take off 
their hats ; the Jews when they pray put them on. Such 
acts, how strongly soever they may affect the imaginations 
of the multitude, may justly be considered as part of the 
arbitrary language of particular countries ; implying no 
diversity whatever in the ideas or feelings of those among 
whom they are established." * 

As a further proof of the impossibility of judging of the 
general character of a people from their opinions concern- 
ing the morality of particular actions, we may observe, 
that, in some of the writings of the ancient moralists, we 
meet with the most refined and sublime precepts blended 
promiscuously with dissuasives from the most shocking 
and detestable crimes ; in one sentence, perhaps, a pre- 
cept which may be read with advantage by the most 
enlightened of the present times ; and in the next, a dis- 
suasive from some crime which no one now could be sup- 
posed to perpetrate who was not arrived at the last stage 
of depravity. 

I have dwelt very long on this subject, because, if it be 
painful to be staggered in our belief of the immutability of 
moral distinctions by the first aspect of the history of 
mankind, it affords a tenfold pleasure to those who feel 
themselves interested in the cause of morality, ^then they 
find, on an accurate examination, that those facts on which 
skeptics have laid the greatest stress are not only con- 
sistent with the moral constitution of man, but result 
necessarily from this constitution, diversified in its effects 
according to the different circumstances in which the indi- 
vidual is situated. To trace in this manner the essential 
principles of the human frame, amidst the various disguises 
it borrows from accidental causes, is one of the most 
interesting employments of philosophical curiosity ; nor is 
there, perhaps, a more satisfactory gratification to a liberal 
mind, than when it recognizes^ under the superstition, the 
ignorance, and the loathsome sensualities of savage life, the 

* See Yergusons Moral and Political Science, Part II. Chap. ii. Sect. iv. 



142 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

kindred features of humanity, and the indehble vestiges of 
that Divine image after which man was originally formed. 

VIII. Loc/ce'5 Connection xoilh this Conlroversy.'] The 
doctrines on this subject which I have hitherto been en- 
deavouring to refute, (how erroneous soever in their prin- 
ples, and dangerous in their consequences,) have been 
maintained by some WTiters, who certainly were not un- 
friendly in their views to the interests of virtue and of 
mankind. In proof of this, I need only mention the name 
of Mr. Locke, who, in the course of a long and honorable 
life, distinguished himself no less by the exemplary worth 
of his private character, and by his ardent zeal for civil 
and religious liberty, than by the depth and originality of 
his philosophical speculations. His errors, however, ought 
not, on these accounts, to be treated with reverence ; but, 
on the contrary, they require a more careful and severe 
examination, in consequence of the high authority they 
derive from his genius and his virtues. And, accordingly, 
I have enlarged on such of his opinions as seemed to me 
favorable to skeptical views concerning the foundation of 
morals, at much greater length than the ingenuity or plau- 
sibility of his reasonings in support of them may appear to 
some to have merited. 

To these opinions of Locke Lord Shaftesbury has 
alluded, in various parts of his works, with a good deal of 
indignation ; and particularly in the following passage of 
his Advice to an Author. " One would imagine that our 
philosophical writers, who pretend to treat of morals, 
should far outdo our poets in recommending virtue, and 
representing what is fair and amiable in human actions. 
One would imagine, that, if they turned their eyes towards 
remote countries, (of which they afiect so much to speak,) 
they should search for that simplicity of manners, and 
innocence of behaviour, which has been often known 
among mere savages, ere they were corrupted by our 
commerce, and, by sad example, instructed in all kinds of 
treachery and inhumanity. It would be of advantage to 
us to hear the cause of this strange corruption in ourselves, 
and be made to consider of our deviation from nature, 
and from that just purity of manners which might be ex- 



LOCKE. 143 

pected, especially from a people so assisted and enlight- 
ened by religion. For who would not naturally expect 
more justice, fidelity, temperance, and honesty from Chris- 
tians than from Mahometans or mere Pagans .'' But so far 
are our modern moralists from condenining any unnatural 
vices or corrupt manners, whether in our own or foreign 
climates, that they would have vice itself appear as natural 
as virtue ; and, from the worst examples, would represent 
to us, ' that all actions are naturally indifferent ; that they 
have no note or character of good or ill in themselves^ but 
are distinguished by mere fashion, law, or arbitrary de- 
cree.' Wonderful philosophy ! raised from the dregs of 
an illiterate, mean kind, which was ever despised among 
the great ancients, and rejected by all men of action or 
sound erudition ; but, in these ages, imperfectly copied 
from the original, and, with much disadvantage, imitated 
and assumed in common, both by devout and indevout 
attempters in the moral kind." * 

Besides these incidental remarks on Locke, which occur 
in different parts of Shaftesbury's writings, there is a let- 
ter of his addressed to a student at the university, which 
relates almost entirely to the opinion we have been con- 
sidering, and contains some excellent observations on the 
subject. 

In this letter Lord Shaftesbury observes, that " all those 
called free xoriters now-a-days have espoused those prin- 
ciples which Mr. Hobbes set afoot in this last age." — 
" Mr. Locke," he continues, "as much as I honor him 
on account of other writings (viz. on government, policy, 
trade, coin, education, toleration, &c.), and as well as I 
knew him, and can answer for his sincerity as a most 
zealous Christian and believer, did however go in the self- 
same track, and is followed by the Tindals, and all the 
other ingenious free authors of our time. 

" It was Mr. Locke that struck the home blow ; for 
Mr. Hobbes's character and base slavish principles of 
government took off the poison of his philosophy. It was 
Mr. Locke that struck at all fundamentals, threw all order 
and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of 

* Part in. Sect. iii. 



144 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

these (which are the same with those of God) unnatural, 
and without foundation in our minds. Innate is a word 
he poorly plays upon ; the right word, though less used, is 
connatural. P^or what has birth, or progress of the fcBtus 
out of the womb, to do in this case ? The question is not 
about the time the ideas entered, or the moment that one 
body came out of the other, but whether the constitution 
of man be such, that, being adult and grown up, at such or 
such a time, sooner or later, (no matter when,) the idea 
and sense of order, administration, and a God will not 
infallibly, inevitably, necessarily, spring up in him ? " * 

In this last remark. Lord Shaftesbury appears to me to 
place the question concerning innate ideas upon the right 
and only philosophical footing, and to afford a key to all 
the confusion which runs through Locke's argument on the 
subject. The observations which follow are not less just 
and valuable ; but I must not indulge myself in any further 
extracts at present. f 

These passages of Shaftesbury, in some of which the 
warmth of his temper has betrayed him into expressions 
disrespectful to Locke, have drawn on him a number of 
very severe animadversions, particularly from Warburton, 
in the preface to his Divine Legation of Moses. But 
although Shaftesbury's personal allusions to Locke cannot 
be justified, some allowance ought to be made for the 

* Letters to a Student at the University, Let. VIII. 

t Notwithstanding, however, the countenance which Locke's reason- 
ings against innate practical principles have the appearance ofgiving to 
the philosophy of Hobbes, I liave not a doubt that the difference of 
opinion between him and Lord Shaftesbury on this point was almost 
entirely verbal. Of this I have elsewhere produced ample proofs; but 
the following passage will suffice for my present purpose. " I would 
not be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there 
were none but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference be- 
tween an innate lata and a laic of nature, between something imprinted 
on our minds in their very original, and something that we, being 
ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due appli- 
cation of our natural faculties. And I think they equally forsake the 
truth, who, running into the contrary "extremes, either affirm an innate 
law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature, with- 
out the help of a positive revelation." — Locke's Essay conccrnina- Hu- 
man Understanding, B. I. Chap. iii. § 13. 

[See, however. Cousin, Hisloire de la Philosopkie, du XVIIfi- Siecle, 
Tom. II. Le9on XX"^. Or Professor Henry's translation: Elements of 
Psychology, Chap, v.] 



LICENTIOUS SYSTEMS. 145 

indignation of a generous mind at a doctrine wiiich (how- 
ever well meant by the proposer) strikes at the very root 
of morality. In this instance, too, it is not improbable 
that the discussion of the general argument may have added 
to the asperity of his style, by reviving the memory of the 
private controversies which, it is presumable, had formerly 
been carried on between Locke and him on this important 
subject. It is well known that Shaftesbury was Locke's 
pupil, and also that their tempers and literary tastes were 
not suitable to each other. In this it is commonly sup- 
posed that the former was to blame ; but, I presume, not 
wholly. Dr. Warton tells us, that Mr. Locke affected 
to despise poetr}', and that he depreciated the ancients ; 
" which circumstance," he adds, " as I am informed from 
undoubted authority, was the subject of perpetual dis- 
content and dispute between him and his pupil. Lord 
Shaftesbury." * That Shaftesbury was not insensible to 
Locke's real merits appears sufficiently from a passage 
in the first of his Letters to a Student at the University. 
" However, I am not sorry that I lent you Locke's Essay, 
a book that may as well qualify men for business and the 
world as for the sciences and the university. No one has 
done more towards the recalling of philosophy from bar- 
barity into use and practice of the world, and into the 
company of the better and politer sort, who might well be 
ashamed of it in its other dress. No one has opened a 
better and clearer way to reasoning." 



Section IV. 

LICENTIOUS SYSTEMS OF MORALS. 

I. Character of the Systems so named.'] The theo- 
ries concerning the origin of our moral ideas which we 
are now to consider, although they agree in many re- 
spects with that of Locke and his followers, have yet pro- 
ceeded from very different views and intentions. They 
also involve some principles that are peculiar to them- 
selves, and which, therefore, render a separate examina- 

* Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, Sect. XII. 

13 



146 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

tlon of ihem necessary for the complete illustration of this 
fundamental article of ethics. They have been distin- 
guished by Mr. Smith by the name of the Licentious Sys- 
tems of Morals^ — a name which certainly cannot be cen- 
sured as too harsh, when applied to those which maintain 
that the motives of all men are fundamentally the same, 
and that what we commonly call virtue is mere hypocrisy. 
Among the licentious moralists of modern times, the 
most celebrated are the Due "de la Rochefoucauld, author 
of the Maxims and JMoral Rejiections, and Dr. Mande- 
ville, author of the Fable of the Bees. By the generality 
of our English philosophers, these two writers are com- 
monly coupled together as advocates for the same system, 
although their views and their characters were certainly 
extremely different. In the first editions of Mr. Smith's 
Theory of Moral Sentiments, he speaks of a licentious 
doctrine concerning morality, which, he says, " was first 
sketched by the delicate pencil of the Due de la Rochefou- 
cauld, and was afterwards enforced by the coarse but pow- 
erful eloquence of Dr. Mandeville." In the last edition 
of that work the name of La Rochefoucauld is omitted, 
from Mr. Smith's deliberate conviction that it was unjust 
to his memory to class him with an author whose writings 
tend directly to confound all our ideas of moral distinc- 
tions. On this point I speak from personal knowledge, 
having been requested by Mr. Smith, when I happened to 
be at Paris some years before his death, to express to the 
late excellent and unfortunate Due de la Rochefoucauld 
his sincere regret for having introduced the name of his 
ancestor and that of Dr. Mandeville in the same sentence. 

II. La Rochefoucauld'' s Life and Personal Character.'] 
The Due de la Rochefoucauld, author of the Maxims, 
was born in 1613, and died in 1680. The early part of 
his education was neglected ; but the disadvantages he 
labored under in consequence of this circumstance he in 
a great measure overcame by the force of his own talents. 
According to Madame de Maintenon, who knew him well, 
"he was possessed of a countenance prepossessing and 
interesting ; of manners graceful and dignified ; of much 
genius, and httle acquired knowledge." The same excel- 



LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 147 

lent judge adds of him, that " he was intriguing, accom- 
modating, and cautious ; but that she had never known a 
friend more firm, more open, or whose counsels were of 
greater value. He loved raillery ; and used to say, that 
personal bravery appeared to him nothing better than folly ; 
and yet he himself was brave to an extreme. He pre- 
served to the last the vivacity of his mind, which was 
always agreeable, though naturally serious." 

In the share which he took in the political transactions 
of his times, he discovered a facility to engage in intrigues, 
without much steadiness in the pursuit of his object. 
This, at least, is a remark made on him by the Cardinal 
de Retz, who, in a portrait of him drawn with a masterly, 
though somewhat prejudiced hand, ascribes the apparent 
inconsistencies of his conduct*fo a natural want of resolu- 
tion. A later writer,* more favorable to his memory, has 
attempted to account for them, with much plausibility, by 
that superiority of penetration, and that rigid integrity, 
which all his contemporaries allow to have been distin- 
guishing features in his character ; and which, though not 
sufficient to keep him wholly disengaged from intrigues in 
a court where every thing was put in motion by the spirit 
of party, rendered him soon disgusted with the pretended 
patriotism and the selfish politics of those with whom he 
acted. Accordingly, although he was induced by the 
force of early connections, and a natural facility of temper, 
to involve himself during a part of his life in public affairs, 
and more particularly, to become a tool of the Duchess of 
Longue"ville in the cabals of the Fronde, his own taste 
seems to have attached him to a more private scene, 
where he could enjoy in freedom the society and friend- 
ship of a hw chosen companions. Towards the end of 
his life he spent much of his time at the house of Madame 
de la Fayette, which appears, from the letters of her 
friend, Madame de Sevigne, to have been, at that period, 
the resort of all persons distinguished for wit and refine- 
ment. It was in the midst of this chosen society that he 
composed his JMemoirs of the Regency of ,/lnne of Jlustria, 
and also his Moral Reflections and Maxims. 

* M. Suard in his edition of the Maximcs, which appeared in 1778. 



148 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

III. Influence of his Writings.l Of these two works, 
the former is written with much elegance, and with a great 
appearance of sincerity ; but the events which it records 
are uninteresting in the present age. Bayle, in his Dic- 
tionary, gives it the preference to the Commentaries of 
Caesar ; but the judgment of the pubhc has not been 
equally favorable. '^ The Memoirs of the Due de la 
Rochefoucauld," says Voltaire, in his account of the 
writers of the age of Louis XIV., " are read ; but every 
one knows his Maxims by heart." In fact, it is almost 
entirely by these maxims (which, as Montesquieu ob- 
serves, " have become the proverbs of men of wit") that 
the name of La Rochefoucauld is known ; and it must be 
confessed that few performances have acquired to their 
authors a higher or more *general reputation. " One of 
the works," says Voltaire, " which contributed most to 
form the taste of the nation to a justness and precision of 
thought and expression, was the small collection of maxims 
by Francis Due de la Rochefoucauld. Although there is 
but one idea in the book, that self-love is the spring of all 
our actions, yet this idea is presented in so great a variety 
of forms as to be always amusing. When it first appeared, 
it was read with avidity ; and it contributed, more than 
any other performance since the revival of letters, to ac- 
custom writers to indulge themselves in an originality of 
thought, and to improve the vivacity, precision, and deli- 
cacy of French composition."* 

That the tendency of these maxims is, upon the whole, 
unfavorable to morality, and that they always leave a 
disagreeable impression on the mind, must, 1 think, be 
granted. f At the same time, it may be fairly questioned 
if the motives of the author have in general been well un- 
derstood, either by his admirers or by his opponents. In 
affirming that self-love is the spring of all our actions, 
there is no good reason for supposing that he meant to 

* Sl&ch de Louis XIV., Chap. XXXII. 

t Mr. Spence, in his Anecdotes of Men and Books, ascribes to Pope a 
remark on La Rochefoucauld which does no small honor to the poet's 
shrewdness and knowledge of human nature. I quote it in Spence's 
words. "As L'Esprit, La Rociiefoucauld, and that sort of people, prove 
tliat all virtues are disijuised vices, I would engage to prove ail vices to 
be disguised virtues. Neither, indeed, is true ; but this would be a more 
agreeable subject, and would overturn their whole scheme." — p. 11. 



LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 149 

deny the reality of moral distinctions as a philosophical 
truth, — a supposition quite inconsistent with his own fine 
and deep remark, that hypocrisy is itself a homage ichich 
vice renders to virtue. He stales it merely as a proposi- 
tion, which, in the course of his experience as a man of the 
world, he had found very generally verified in the higher 
classes of society, and which he was induced to announce, 
without any qualification or restriction, in order to give 
more force and poignancy to his satire. In adopting this 
mode of writing, he has unconsciously conformed himself, 
like many other French authors, who have since followed 
his example,* to a suggestion which Aristotle has stated 
with admirable depth and acuteness in his Rhetoric. "Sen- 
tences or apophthegms lend much aid to eloquence. One 
reason of this is, that they flatter the pride of the hearers, 
who are delighted when the speaker, making use of gen- 
eral language, touches upon opinions which they had before 
known to be true in part. Thus-, a person w'ho had the 
misfortune to live in a bad neighbourhood, or to have 
worthless children, would easily assent to the speaker who 
should affirm that nothing is more vexatious than to have 
any neighbours ; nothing more irrational than to bring 
children into the world." f This observation of Aristotle, 

* Thus it has often been said by French writers, that " no man is a 
hero to his valet dc ckamhre" ; and the maxim, when properly under- 
stood, has some foundation in truth. It probably was meant by its 
original author to refer only to those petty circumstances of temper and 
behaviour which, without affecting the essentials of character, have a 
tendency to diminish, on a near approach, the theatrical effect of great 
men. It has, however, been frequently quoted as implying that there 
are none whose virtues will bear a close examination j in which accep- 
tation, it is not more injurious to human nature than it is contrary to 
fact. How much more profound, as well as more pleasing, is the re- 
mark of Plutarch I " Real virtue is most loved where it is most nearly 
seen, and no respect which it commands from strangers can equal the 
never-ceasing admiration it excites in the daily intercourse of domestic 
life." — Vit. Periclis. It is indeed true, that some men, who are admired 
by the world, appear to most advantage when viewed at a distance ; 
but, on the other hand, may it not be contended that many who are 
objects of general odium would be found, if examined more nearly, not 
to be destitute of estimable and amiable qualities.' May we not even 
go further, and assert that the very worst of men have a mixture of 
good in their composition, and to express a doubt whether human na- 
ture would gain or lose upon a thorough acquaintance with the conduct 
and motives of individuals.' 

i Lib. II. Cap. xxii. 

13* 



150 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

while it goes far to account for the imposing and dazzling 
effect of these rhetorical exaggerations, ought to guard us 
against the common and popular error of mistaking them 
for the serious and profound generalizations of science. 
As for La Rochefoucauld, we know, from the best au- 
thorities, that in private life he was a conspicuous example 
of all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny 
the existence ; and that he exhibited, in this respect, a 
striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has pre- 
sumed to censure him for his want of faith in the reality 
of virtue. 

In reading La Rochefoucauld, it should never be forgot- 
ten that it was within the vortex of a court he enjoyed his 
chief opportunities of studying the world, and that the 
narrow and exclusive circle in which he moved w^as not 
likely to afford him the most favorable specimens of human 
nature in general. Of the court of Louis XIV. in par- 
ticular, we are told by -a very nice and reflecting observer 
(Madame de la Fayette), that " ambition and gallantry 
were the soul^ actuating alike both men and women. So 
many contending interests, so many different cabals, were 
constantly at work, and in all of those women bore so im- 
portant a part, that love was always mingled with business, 
and business with love. Nobody was tranquil or indif- 
ferent. Every one studied to advance himself by pleasing, 
serving, or ruining others. Idleness and languor were 
unknown, and nothing was thought of but intrigues or 
pleasures." 

In the passage already quoted from Voltaire, he takes 
notice of the effect of La Rochefoucauld's maxims in im- 
proving the style of French composition. We may add to 
this remark, that their effect has not been less sensible in 
vitiating the tone and character of French philosophy, by 
bringing into vogue those false and degrading representa- 
tions of human nature and of human life which have pre- 
vailed in that country more or less for a century past. 
Mr. Addison, in one of the papers of the Tatler, ex- 
presses his indignation at this general bias among the 
French writers of his age. "It is impossible," he ob- 
serves, " to read a passage in Plato, or Tully, or a 
thousand other ancient moralists, without being a greater 



MANDEVILLE. 151 

and better man for it. On the contrary, I could never 
read any of our modish French authors, or those of our 
own country who are the imitators and admirers of that 
nation, without being for some time out of humor with 
myself, and at every thing about me. Their business is to 
depreciate human nature, and to consider it under the 
worst appearances ; they give mean interpretations and 
base motives to the worthiest of actions. In short, they 
endeavour to make no distinction between man and man, 
or between the species of man and that of the brutes." 

IV. MandevilWs Writings and Moral System.] 
From the form in which La Rochefoucauld's maxims are 
published, it is impossible to attempt a particular examina- 
tion of them ; nor, indeed, do I apprehend that such an 
examination is necessary for any of the purposes which [ 
have at present in view. So far as their tendency is un- 
favorable to the reality of moral distinctions, it is the 
same with that of Mandeville's system ; and therefore 
the strictures I am now to offer on the latter writer may 
be applied with equal truth to the general conclusions 
which some have chosen to draw from the satirical obser- 
vations of the former. 

Dr. Mandeville was born in Holland, where he received 
his'^education both in medicine and in philosophy. He 
made his first appearance in England about the beginning 
of the last century, and soon attracted very general atten- 
tion by the vivacity and licentiousness of his publications. 

The work by which he is best known is a poem, first 
printed in 1714, with the title of The Grumbling Hive, 
or Knaves turned Honest ; upon which he afterwards 
wrote Remarks, and published the whole at London in 
1723, having for its title The Fable of the Bees : or Pri- 
vate Vices, Public Benefits. This book was presented 
by the grand jury of Middlesex the same year, and was 
severely animadverted on soon after by some very eminent 
writers, particularly by Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, 
and by Dr. Hutcheson of Glasgow in his various treatises 
on ethical subjects. 

To the Remarks on the Fable of the Bees, the author 
has prefixed Jin Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue ; 



] 52 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

and it is to this inquiry that I propose to confine myself 
chiefly in the following strictures, as it exhibits his peculiar 
opinions concerning the principles of morals in a more 
systematical form than any of his other writings. In the 
course of the observations which I have to offer w'nh re- 
spect to it, I shall perhaps be led to repeat one or two 
remarks which were already suggested by the doctrines of 
Locke. But, for this repetition, i hope that the importance 
of the subject will be a, sufficient apology. 

The great object of Mandeville's inquiry into the origin 
of moral virtue is to show that all our moral sentiments 
are derived from education, and are the workmanship of 
politicians and lawgivers. " These," says he, " observ- 
ing how selfish an animal man is, and how impossible, in 
consequence, it would be to retain numbers together in 
the same society without government,, endeavoured to give 
his selfish principles a direction useful to the public. For 
this purpose they have labored in all ages to convince him 
that it is better to restrain than to indulge his appetites, 
and to consult the public interest than his own. The 
engine they employed in working upon him was flattery, 
which they addressed to vanit}^, one of the strongest prin- 
ciples of our nature. They contrasted man with the lower 
animals, and magnified the advantages he possesses over 
them. The human race they divided into two classes ; 
the mean and contemptible, who, after the example of the 
brutes, gratify every animal propensity ; and the generous 
and high-spirited, who, disdaining these low gratifications, 
bent their study to cultivate the nobler principles of our 
nature, and waged a continual war with themselves to pro- 
mote the happiness of others. In the case of men pos- 
sessed of an extraordinary degree of pride and resolution, 
these representations of politicians and moralists were able 
to effectuate a complete conquest of their natural appetites, 
and a complete contempt of their own visible interests ; 
and even the feeble-minded and abject would be unwilling 
to rank themselves in the class to which they really be- 
longed, and would strive to conceal their imperfections 
from the world, by their forwardness to swell the cry in 
praise of self-denial and of public spirit. Such," says 
JNIandeville, " icas, or at least might have ieen, the man- 



MANDEVILLE. 153 

ner after which savage man was broke ; and what we call 
the moral virtues are merely the political offspring which 
flattery begot upon pride,'' ^ 

I shall not insist on the absurdity of supposing that gov- 
ernment is an invention of political wisdom, and not the 
natural result of man's constitution, and of the circum- 
stances in which he is placed. This, however improb- 
able, is one of the least absurdities of Mandeville's system. 
Its capital defect consists in supposing that the origin of 
our moral virtues may be accounted for from the power of 
education ; a fundamental error which is common to the 
system of Mandeville and that of Locke as commonly 
understood by his followers, and which I had formerly 
occasion to notice and refute. I shall not, therefore, en- 
large upon it at present, but shall confine myself to those 
parts of Mandeville's philosophy which are peculiar to 
himself. 

V. His Erroneous J^otions respecting Vanity and Pride.^ 
It appears from the passage just quoted, that the engine 
which Mandeville supposes politicians to employ for the 
purpose of creating the artificial distinction between virtue 
and vice is vanity or pride, which two words he uses as 
synonymous. He employs them, likewise, in a much more 
extensive sense than their common acceptation authorizes ; 
to denote, not only an overweening conceit of our own 
character and attainments, or a weak and childish passion 
for the admiration of others, but that reasonable desire for 
the esteem of our fellow-creatures, which, so far from 
being a weakness, is a laudable and respectable principle. 
The desire of esteem and the dread of contempt are 
undoubtedly among the strongest principles of our nature ; 
but in good minds they are only subsidiary to the desire 
of excellence, nay, they cannot be effectually gratified if 
they are the first springs of our actions. To be pleased 
with the applause of others, it is not sufficient to possess 
the appearance of good qualities ; we must possess the 
reality. A man of sense and delicacy is never more mor- 
tified than when he receives praise for qualities which he 
knows do not belong to him ; and he is comforted, under 
the mistaken censures of the world, by the consciousness 



154 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

he does not deserve tliern. A desire of applause may, 
without detracting from our merit, mingle itself with the 
more worthy motives of our conduct ; but if it is the sole 
motive, the attainment of the object will never communi- 
cate a lasting satisfaction. 

" Falsiis honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret, 
Q,uem, nisi mendosum et mendacem?"* 

Vanity, in propriety of speech, denotes a weakness aris- 
ing from a perversion of the desire of esteem. A man is 
vain who values himself on what is unworthy of regard, as 
the external distiactions of equipage or dress. He, too, 
is vain who wishes to pass in the world for what he really 
is not, and boasts of qualities which he does not possess. 
We also give the name of vanity to that weakness which 
disposes a man to be pleased with flattery, and which leads 
him, not only to desire the esteem of others, but to place 
his happiness in public expressions of it. In every case, 
vanity denotes a weakness which is carefully to be distin- 
guished from the love of true glory. 

Mandeville uses the word to express every sentiment of 
regard that we feel for the good opinion of others : and, 
wherever this regard can be supposed to have had any 
influence on our conduct, he concludes that vanity was our 
principle of action. 

From these observations, added to those formerly made 
on Locke, it follows, in the first place, that the whole of 
our moral sentiments cannot be accounted for from educa- 
tion. Secondly, that, by confounding together vanity, and 
a reasonable regard to the esteem of our fellow-creatures, 
Mandeville has expressed the fundamental proposition of 
his system in terms so vague and ambiguous as renders it 
impossible to form a distinct conception of his meaning. 
And, thirdly, that even this reasonable and laudable desire 
of esteem cannot be effectually gratified, if it be the sole 
principle of our conduct ; and therefore cannot be the 
only source of our moral virtues. 

From the principle of vanity, IMandeville endeavours 

" Hor., Ep. XVI. 39. 

" False praise can cliarnn, unreal shame control, 
Whom, but a vicious or a sickly soul?" 



MANDEVILLE. 155 

to account for all the instances of self-denial that have 
occurred in the v/orld. But he is not satisfied with ex- 
plaining away in this manner the reality of moral distinc- 
tions. He endeavours to show that human life is nothing 
but a scene of hypocrisy, and that there is really little or 
none of that self-denial to be found that some men lay 
claim to. In his theory of moral virtue he seems to allow 
that education may not only teach a man to check his 
appetites in order to procure the esteem of others, but 
that it may teach him to consider such a conquest over 
the lower principles of his nature as noble in itself, and as 
elevating him still farther than nature had done above the 
level of the brutes. " Those men," says he, " who have 
labored to establish societies endeavoured, in the first 
place, to insinuate themselves into the hearts of men by 
flattery, extolling the excellences of our nature above 
other animals. They next began to instruct them in the 
notions of honor and shame, representing the one as the 
worst of all evils, and the other as the highest good to 
which mortals could aspire; — which being done, they 
laid before them how unbecoming it was the dignity of 
such sublime creatures to be solicitous about gratifying 
those appetites which they had in common with the brutes, 
and at the same time unmindful of those higher qualities 
that gave them the preeminence over all visible beings. 
They, indeed, confessed that these impulses of nature 
were very pressing ; that it was troublesome to resist, and 
very difficult wholly to subdue them. But this they only 
used as an argument to demonstrate how glorious the con- 
quest of them was on the one hand, and how scandalous 
on the other not to attempt it." 

These arguments, it is evident, are addressed to pride 
rather than to vanity ; and it is worthy of remark, that, 
though Mandeville never states the distinction between 
these two words, but, on the contrary, affects to consider 
them as synonymous, he plainly was aware of the import of 
both, and sometimes uses the one, and sometimes the other, 
as best suits his purpose. Thus, in the following pas- 
sage, if the word vanity were substituted instead o( pride, 
the impropriety could not escape the most careless reader. 
" Such men as, from no other motive but their love of 



156 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

goodness, perform a worthy action in silence, have, I con- 
fess, acquired more refined notions of virtue than those I 
have hitherto spoke of, yet even in these (with whom the 
world has never yet swarmed) we may discover no small 
symptoms of pride ; and the humblest man alive must 
confess that the reward of a virtuous action, which is the 
satisfaction that ensues upon it, consists in a certain pleas- 
ure he procures to himself, by contemplating on his own 
worth ; which pleasure, together with the occasion of it, 
are as certain signs of pride as booking pale and trembling 
at any imminent danger are the symptoms of fear." 

From these passages, however, it is abundantly clear, 
that, in his theory of virtue, Mandeville admits the possi- 
bility of self-denial being exercised merely for the private 
gratification of the pride of the individual, without any 
regard to the opinions of other men. But in his com- 
mentary on the Fable of the Bees, he goes much farther, 
and attempts to show that there is really no self-denial in 
the world, and that what we call a conquest is only a 
concealed indulgence of our passions. To establish this 
point, he avails himself of the ambiguity of language. The 
passion of sex he, in every case, calls lust ; every thing 
which exceeds what is necessary for the support of life 
he calls luxury ; and thus confounding the innocent and 
reasonable gratifications of our passions with their vicious 
excesses, he pretends to show that there is really no vir- 
tue among men. " There are some of our passions," 
says Mr. Smith, "which have no other names except 
those which mark the disagreeable and offensive degree. 
The spectator is more apt to take notice of them in this 
degree than in any other. When they shock his own sen- 
timents, when they give him some sort of antipathy and un- 
easiness, he is necessarily obliged to attend to them, and 
is from thence naturally led to give them a name. When 
they fall in with the natural state of his own mind, he is 
very apt to overlook them altogether, and either gives 
them no name at all, or, if he gives them any, it is one 
which marks rather the subjection and restraint of the pas- 
sion than the degree which it is still allowed to subsist in 
after it is so subjected and restrained. Thus, the com- 
mon names of the love of pleasure and of the love of sex 



MANDEVILLE. 157 

denote a vicious and offensive degree of those passions. 
The words temperance and chastity, on the other hand, 
seem to mark rather the restraint and subjection in which 
they are kept under, than the degree which they are still 
allowed to subsist in. When he can show, therefore, that 
they still subsist in some degree, he imagines he has en- 
tirely demolished the reality of the virtues of temperance 
and chastity, and shown them to be mere impositions up- 
on the inattention and simplicity of mankind. Those 
virtues, however, do not require an entire insensibility to 
the objects of the passions which they mean to govern. 
They only aim at restraining the violence of those passions 
so far as not to hurt the individual, and neither to disturb 
nor offend society. 

"It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book to 
represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in 
any degree, and in any direction. It is thus that he treats 
every thing as vanity which has any reference either to 
what are, or what ought to be, the sentiments of others ; 
and it is by means of this sophistry that he establishes his 
favorite conclusion, that private vices are public benefits. 
If the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and 
improvements of human life, for whatever is agreeable in 
dress, furniture, or equipage, for architecture, statuary, 
painting, and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensu- 
ality, and ostentation, even in those whose situation allows, 
without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those pas- 
sions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation 
are public benefits, since, without the qualities upon which 
he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the 
arts of refinement could never find employment, and must 
languish for want of encouragement. Some popular ascetic 
doctrines which had been current before his time, and 
which placed virtue in the entire extirpation and annihilation 
of all our passions, were the real foundation of this licen- 
tious system. It was easy for Dr. Mandeville to prove, 
first, that this entire conquest never actually took place 
among men ; and, secondly, that, if it was to take place 
universally, it would be pernicious to society, by putting 
an end to all commerce and industry, and, in a manner, to 
the whole business of human life. By the first of these 
14 



158 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

propositions he seemed to prove that there was no real 
virtue, and that what pretended to be such was a mere 
cheat and imposition upon mankind ; and by the second, 
that private vices were pubhc benefits, since without them 
no society could prosper or flourish." * 

VI. On the General Impression and Practical Tendency 
of such Speculations.] I shall not enter into a more par- 
ticular examination of Mandeville's doctrines. I cannot, 
however, leave the subject without observing, that the im- 
pression which the author's writings produce on the mind 
affords a sufficient refutation of his principles. It was 
considered by Cicero as a strong presumption against the 
system of Epicurus, that " it breathed nothing genel'ous or 
noble," nihil magnificum, nihil generosum sapit ; and the 
same presumption will be found to' apply, with tenfold 
force, to that theory which has been now under our dis- 
cussion. If there be no real distinction between virtue and 
vice, — if the account given by Mandeville of the constitu- 
tion of our nature be a just one, — why do his reasonings 
render us dissatisfied with our own characters, or inspire 
us with a detestation and contempt for mankind ? Why 
do we turn with pleasure from the dark and uncomfortable 
prospects which he presents to us, to the delightful and 
elevating views of human nature which are exhibited in 
those philosophical systems which he attempts to explode } 
It will be said, perhaps, that all this arises from pride or 
vanitv. When we read Mandeville, we are ashamed of 
the species to which we belong ; while, on the contrary, 
our pride is gratified by those sublime but fallacious de- 
scriptions of disinterested virtue, with which the weakness 
or hypocrisy of some popular writers has flattered the 
moral enthusiasm of the multitude. But if Mandeville's 
account of our nature be just, whence is it that we come 
to have an idea of one class of qualities as more excellent 
and meritorious than another ? Why do we consider pride 
or vanity as a less worthy motive for our conduct than 
disinterested patriotism or friendship, or a determined ad- 
herence to what we believe to be our duty ? Why does 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. II. Chap. iv. 



MANDEVILLE. 159 

human nature appear to us less amiable in his writings 
than in the writings of Addison ? or whence the origin of 
those opposite sentiments which the very names of Addi- 
son and of Mandeville inspire ? We shall admit the fact 
with respect to the actual depravity of man to be as he 
states it ; but does not the impression his system leaves 
on the mind demonstrate that we are at least formed with 
the love and admiration of moral excellence, and that 
virtue was intended to be the law of our conduct ? The 
question concerning the actual attainments of man must 
not be confounded with the question concerning the reality 
of moral distinctions. If Mandeville is successful in estab- 
lishing his doctrine on the first of these points, the dis- 
satisfaction his conclusions leave on the mind is sufficient 
to overturn his doctrine with respect to the latter. The 
remark of La Rochefoucauld, that "hypocrisy itself is a 
homage which vice renders to virtue," involves a satisfac- 
tory reply to all the arguments that have ever been drawn 
from the prevailing corruption of mankind against the 
moral constitution of human nature. 

It is the capital defect of this system to confound to- 
gether the two questions I have just stated, and to substi- 
tute a satire on vice and folly instead of a philosophical 
account of those moral principles which form an essential 
part of our frame. That there is a great deal of truth 
mixed with the sophistry it contains, I am ready to ac- 
knowledge ; and if the author's remarks had been thrown 
into the form of satires, many of them might have been 
useful to the world, by the light they throw on human 
character, and by the assistance which individuals may de- 
rive from them in examining their own motives of action. 
Some apology might have been made, in this case, for the 
colorings which the author's facts have borrowed from his 
imagination. The object of the satirist is to reform ; and 
for this purpose it may sometimes be of use to exaggerate 
the prevailing vices and follies of the time, in order to 
contrast more strongly what mankind are with what they 
might and ought to be. But the satirist who wishes well 
to his species, while he indulges his indignation against 
prevailing corruptions, will recollect, that, if his censures 
are just, they presuppose the reality of moral distinctions ; 



IGO THE MORAL FACULTY. 

and while he laments the depravity of the race, and chas- 
tises the follies and vices of individuals, he will reverence 
morality as the Divine law, and those essential principles of 
the human frame which bear the manifest signature of the 
Divine workmanship. To attempt to depreciate these can 
never answer a good purpose. On the contrary, it has a 
tendency to fill the minds of good men with'a desponding 
skepticism, and to stifle every generous and active exer- 
tion ; and if it does not actually increase the depravity of 
the world, it tends at least to strengthen the effrontery of 
vice, and to expose the wiser and better part of mankind 
to the impertinent raillery of fools and profligates.* 

Appendix to Chapter II. 

BENTHAM AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 

I. Bentham''s Etliical Writings and Doctrines.~\ Jeremy 
Bentham was born in London, in the year 174S, and at a 
very early age became a graduate of the University of Ox- 
■ford. Whilst there, he directed his attention to the study 
of law and the cognate branch of ethics, and during the 
last year of his stay in that city became an ardent admirer 
and investigator of the principle of utility, chiefly from 
reading Dr. Priestley's Sssai/wpon Government. In 1776 
he published a Fragment on Government, and in 1789 ap- 
peared his grand work, entitled Introduction to the Princi- 
ples of JMorals and Legislation. The moral system which 
Bentham advocated in this latter work, and which he ex- 
panded more and more during a long and laborious life, at 
length came forth, in the year 1834, in its most complete, 
and at the same time most popular form, as a posthumous 
production, edited by Dr. Bowring, under the title of 
Deontology^ ; or the Science of Morality. 

* As tlie direct influence of the writings of La Rochefoucauld and 
3Iandevil)e has passed away for the most part, I have taken the liberty 
slightly to abridge what was said of them in the text, in order to nial<e 
room for some account of a more distinguished moralist of the selfish 
school, Jeremy Bentham. What relates to Bentham himself is taken 
from Morell's Vieio of Speculative Philosop/nj in the Kinelecnth Ceiitniru, 
Chap. IV. ; what relates to his followers is taken from JMackintosh's 
Progress of Ethical Pkilosoplnj, Sect. VI. — Ed. 



BENTHAM. 161 

The principles advocated under the name of deontology 
may be easily explained. The whole system takes its 
rise from the consideration that man is capable of pleas- 
ures and pains, and that, from the calculation of these, all 
moral action proceeds. On this theory, good is a word 
synonymous with pleasure, evil synonymous with pain, 
and all happiness consists in the possession of the one, 
and the absence of the other. Give me, says the utilita- 
rian teacher, give me the human sensibilities, — joy and 
grief, pain and pleasure, and I will create a moral world. 
Pleasure and pain, then, the basis of our moral nature, 
are to be estimated according to their magnitude and ex- 
tent ; magnitude, referring to their intensity and duration ; 
extent, depending on the number of persons who are af- 
fected by them. It is in the proper balancing of these, 
asserts Bentham, that all morality consists, and beyond 
this the words virtue and vice are emptiness and folly. 

Pleasure or pain, however, may arise from two sources ; 
it may arise from considerations affecting ourselves, or it 
may arise from the contemplation of others, the former 
being purely of a selfish nature, the latter being sympa- 
thetic. Hence originates a twofold division of virtue 
into prudence and effective benevolence, — both of them, 
however, alike having their ground in the pleasure we 
personally derive from their exercise. Prudence, again, 
is of two kinds, that which respects ourselves, which our 
author terms self-regarding prudence ; and that which 
respects others, which he terms extra-regarding prudence. 
Effective benevolence, also, is twofold, positive and nega- 
tive ; the business of the former being to augment pleasure 
by voluntary exertion, that of the latter being to do the 
same by abstaining from action. Virtue, says Bentham, 
when separated from the pursuit of happiness, is absolute- 
ly nothing ; and, accordingly, it is termed by him a ficti- 
tious entity. Inasmuch, also, as no one is supposed to 
have any motive for action different from the pursuit of 
pleasure or the avoidance of pain, we have the deonto- 
logical doctrine educed, that every motive is abstractly 
good, and that evil has to do with nothing but our actions 
or dispositions. In a word, we are to imagine, that man 
has originally no moral sentiment whatever, that he has no 
14* 



162 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

idea of one thing being right and another wrong, that all 
actions are to him in this respect absolutely alike, and that 
the conception of virtue, as well as the rules of morality, 
are all the product of experience, teaching us what actions 
produce happiness, and what suffering. Such is the moral 
system, which is aptly enough termed the greatest-happi- 
ness principle, and such the virtue which is correctly ex- 
pressed as the art of maximizing our enjoyment. 

The style of the work from which 1 have made the 
above analysis is popular, witty, and somewhat amusing, 
but becomes at length tedious from repetition and tau- 
tology. It abounds in biting sarcasm against what is 
termed the dogmatism and " ipse-dixitism " of most other 
moralists ; but, what is remarkable, is itself at the same 
time one of the most striking instances of reiterated asser- 
tion that is to be found among allthe ethical writings of 
the present century.* 

* A few selections will best illustrate Bentham's liglit and irreverent 
tone. Thus in Part I. Chap. II. : — " The talisman of arrogantve, indo- 
lence, and ignorance is to be found in a single -ivord, an authoritative 
imposture, which in these pages it will be frequently necessary to un- 
veil. It is the word ought, — ought or ought nut, as circumstances may 
be. In deciding ' You ought to do this, — You oua-ht not to do it,' is not 
every question of morals set at rest.' If the word be admissible at all, 
it 'ought' to be banished from the vocabulary of morals. There is 
anotiier word which has a talismanic virtue, too, and which might be 
wielded to destroy many fatal and fallacious positions. 'You ought,' — 
' You ought not,' says the dogmatist. ' JFhy P ' retorts the inquirer, — 
' Why.'' To say 'You ought' is easy in the extreme. To stand the 
searching penetration of a Why ? is not so easy. ' Why ought I .' ' 
' Because you ought,' is the not unfrequent reply ; on which the W' hy ? 
comes back again with the added advantage of having obtained a vic- 
tory." A morality from the vocabularv of which the word "ought" is 
to be banished I It is hardly necessary to observe that the whole force 
of Bentham's " Why ? " depends on his determination to accept no 
answer which is not sali.sfactory according to his theory of utilitarianism, 
— of course palpably illogical, as it begs the whole question. 

Again in Chapter III.: — "The summum bonum, — the sovereign 
good, — what is it.' The philosophers' stone that converts all metals 
into gold, — the balm Hygeian that cures all manner of diseases. It is 
this thing, and that thing, and the other thing; it is any thing but 
pleasure ; it is the Irishman's apple-pie made of nothing but quinces." 
He then amuses himself by going a little more into detail with the 
various answers which piiilosophers and divines have made to the 
question proposed above. A single specimen will suffice. " But we 
are still at sea, and another set cry out, ' The habit of virtue ' ; the habit 
of virtue is the summum bonum: either tliis is the jewel itself, or the 
casket in which it is found. Lie all your life long in your bed with the 



BENTHAM. 163 

II. Objections to Bentham''s System-I In offering some 
remarks upon Benlham's philosophy, we must state dis- 
tinctly, that we leave entirely out of the question his val- 
uable labors in the department of jurisprudence, and refer 
simply to the principles of his moral theory. And here 
we would caution every ethical student against imagining, 
that he will find all the originality which is claimed for 
the deontologist by himself and his more ardent admirers. 
To speak of Bentham's " having found out the true psy- 
chological law of our nature, as Newton discovered that 
of the material universe," is not only metaphysically false, 
but, even allowing its philosophical accuracy, is histori- 

rheumatism in your loins, the stone in your bladder, and the gout in your 
feet : have but the habit of virtue, and you have the summuni bonum. 
Much good may it do you." 

Once more, in Chapter IV. : — " The moral sense, say some, prompts 
to generosity; but does it determine what is generous? It prompts to 
justice; but does it determine what is just? It can decide no contro- 
versy ; it can reconcile no difference. Introduce a modern partisan of 
the moral sense., and an ancient Greek, and ask each of them whether 
actions deemed blameless in ancient days, but respecting which opinions 
have now undergone great change, ought to be tolerated in a commu- 
nity, ' By no means,' says the modern ; ' as my moral sense abhors 
them, therefore they ought not.' 'But mine,' says the ancient, 'ap- 
proves of them; therefore they ought.' And there, if the modern 
keep his principles and his temper, the matter must end between them. 
Upon the ground of moral sense there is no going one jot further; and 
the result is, that the actions in question are at once laudable and de- 
testable. The modern, then, as probably he will keep neither his prin- 
ciples nor his temper, says to the ancient, 'Your moral sense is nothing 
to the purpose ; yours is corrupt, abominable, detestable ; all rations cry 
out against you.' 'No such thing,' replies the ancient; 'and if they 
did, it would be nothing to the purpose; our business was to inquire, 
not what people think, but what they ought to think.'' Thereupon the 
modern kicks the ancient, or spits in his face; or, if he is strong enough, 
throws him behind the fire. One can think of no other method, that is 
at once natural and consistent, of continuing the debate." 

It was flir. Bentham's pleasure to persist in supposing that all his 
opponents, a few ascetics excepted, could be classed under the head of 
believers in a moral sense. A large proportion of them, as we shall 
soon see, hold that the moral faculty pertains to the rational., and not to 
the sensitive., element in human nature. That the moral faculty should 
make mistakes, and afterwards correct them, does not disprove its exist- 
ence as a natural endowment of man, or its legitimate authority. If it 
did, we might disprove the existence and authority of the knowing or 
cognitive faculty in the same way ; for that also makes mistakes, and 
afterwards corrects them. Because we say that children and savages 
have a conscience, we do not mean that they have one in the same 
stage of development, and consequently we do not mean that its decis- 
ions are as clear, or as correct, as in the case of the properly educated. 
-Ed. 



164 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

cally untrue. To say nothing of the Epicureans of an- 
cient times, and more recently of Hobbes, we might point 
out many writers who have given far more than passing 
allusions to the very same doctrine as that for which Bent- 
ham is so highly extolled, although they may not have 
expanded it so fully, or applied it so extensively, as was 
done in the case before us.* The professed supporters 
of utility, again, such as Hume and Paley, proceeded vir- 
tually upon the very same principle ; and even if we pass 
over these, yet still we might refer to Gay's Preface to 
Archbishop King On the Origin of Evil, to the writings 
of Priestley, to the Political Justice of Godwin, and to 
many of the French moralists, for illustrations of the very 
same theory, which Bentham only somewhat more perse- 
veringly elaborated. The greatest-happiness principle is, 
in fact, utilitarianism in one of its many different phases ; 
and accordingly the objections which we have already 
urged against that doctrine apply with equal force to the 
one now before us. As the question, however, is of some 
importance, we shall specify a few other objections, which 
apply more directly to the utilitarian system, as held by 
the advocates of deontology ; and, 

1 . There is in these writers a perpetual habit of con- 
founding the cause of virtuous action with the effect. We 
have it reiterated again and again, as an unanswerable 
argument, that there must be a selfish pleasure experienced 
whenever we act on virtuous principles : for, if our action 
terminates in ourselves, it must arise from the prospect of 
our own happiness and advantage ; if, on the other hand, 
we act for the welfare of others, still, we are told, it is 
only for the satisfaction of our own impulses that we seek 
to benefit them. Now, that there is pleasure attached to 
moral action, whether it be self-seeking or extra-seeking, 
we readily admit ; but this is far from giving us a proof that 
such action springs from any anticipation of the pleasure 
■we hope to obtain. It is a pleasure to a strong man to 

* The only difference between Epicurus or Hobbes on the one side, 
and Bentham on the other, is, that the former drew their principles at 
once from human nature metaphysically considered, — while the latter 
gave no theory of man generally, but laid down his moral axioms as 
ultimate facts. 



BENTHAM. 165 

exercise his limbs ; but this is no evidence ihat he cannot 
have any other motive than this for exercising them. To 
a man devoted to business it is a pleasure to be perpetually 
absorbed in it ; but still his activity may have many other 
grounds of excitement besides that one. Prove as you 
may, that pleasure actually accompanies, and even that we 
expect it to accompany, the practice of every virtue, the 
point is still far from being settled that there is no other 
spring of virtuous action in existence. The Deity, as- 
suredly, may have given us a moral law, may have en- 
graved it on our own minds, and placed it far beyond all 
the chances of human calculation ; and yet may have 
attached pleasure to the obedience of it as a mark of his 
approval, and as a reward for our fidelity. The mere 
fact, therefore, that we always look for happiness to ac- 
company virtuous action, does not at all prove that happi- 
ness is the ground of its moral excellence. This is con- 
firmed when we consider, 

2. That, upon investigating the moral phenomena of our 
minds, we find a class of affections which rise in their 
real worth just in proportion to their disinterestedness. If 
personal pleasure were the ground of virtue, then every 
affection ought to be esteemed higher in the scale of mor- 
ality in proportion as it tends more directly to self as its 
object. Just the contrary is the case. The more our 
own individual interests are sacrificed in the pursuit of 
another's welfare, the higher rises the scale of virtue from 
which such conduct proceeds. If it be said that we sacri- 
fice our own interests, because the pleasure of satisfying 
our benevolent feelings more than counterbalances the 
loss we sustain, we reply, that this only exhibits the vast 
strength of our purely disinterested affections, and affords 
no proof that, because they give us pleasure in their exer- 
cise, therefore they must be selfish in their origin. Only 
show in one single instance, that the direct end of an action 
is for the sake of another to the sacrifice of ourselves, and 
the fact that we have a moral satisfaction in its perform- 
ance does not in the slightest degree shake its purely un- 
selfish character. 

3. That there are certain Ji-rec? relations between man's 
moral sensibilities and outward actions is a fact resting 



166 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

upon the evidence of our consciousness ; and it is to these 
eternal relations that we direct our inquiries, when we seek 
to lay the groundwork of a moral philosophy. Very dif- 
ferent, however, is our employment when we are merely 
engaged in calculating for our future happiness, with pleas- 
ures and pains as our ciphers. What is a pleasure to one 
man is often a pain to another ; that which offers to me 
satisfaction, presents, perhaps, a prospect of naught but 
misery to you ; so that moral relations, on this principle, 
must be as uncertain and variable as are the temperaments 
or idiosyncrasies of individual minds. There needs to be, 
on the deontological system, a separate moral scale for 
every man ; nay, we ought all to revise our own moral 
principles every year or two, to see whether that which 
was a pleasure to us some time ago may not now have be- 
come an object of dissatisfaction : whether, therefore, that 
which was virtue has not now become vice. Our reason, 
we contend, in opposition to this, forces us to form certain 
primary and fundamental moral judgments, just as much 
as it necessitates the existence of our primary beliefs with 
regard to the external world, or to the fact of an exertion 
of power in the production of every effect, or to the axioms 
which lie at the foundation of all mathematical reasoning. 
It is just as impossible for me practically to deny the obli- 
gation of justice, as it is to deny that the world- exists, or 
that a whole is greater than a part. The one as well as, the, 
other rests upon the primary and undeniable facts of our 
own unchangeable consciousness, — facts which, though 
they may be disputed in theory, can never be denied in 
practice. That a philosophical dreamer may run his head 
against the wall on the score of his idealism, we do not 
dispute ; nor do we doubt but that, in the case of moral 
obliquity, where the consequences of the foil}'' are not so 
immediate, men may be found to reject the fundamental 
axioms of moral obligation ; but in the healthy understand- 
ings of the mass of mankind, the one judgment is just as 
plainly developed as the other. 

4. There is a secret petitio principii at the very founda- 
tion of all utilitarian reasoning like that of Bentham. Every 
man, it is affirmed, ought to seek the greatest happiness of 
the greatest number, as the fundamental principle of his 



BENTHAM. 1 67 

actions in the world. But why ought he to do so ? On 
what ground can it be shown, that ] am bound to seek the 
welfare of myself or my fellow-creatures, if there is no 
such thing as moral obligation ? If it pleases me more to 
inflict misery upon mankind, why am I not just as vir- 
tuous an agent in doing so, as if I please myself by pro- 
ducing their happiness ? The greatest-happiness principle 
itself must, in fact, rest upon the pedestal of moral obliga- 
tion, otherwise there is no means of enforcing it as the 
true principle of action, either in our social or our political 
relations. Take away that firm resting-place which is 
afforded by the notion of duty, and expressed in the 
word ought^ and we may sink from one position down to 
another, without ever reaching a solid basis on which we 
may plant our feet, and lay the first stone of a moral super- 
structure. That this is really the case is half acknowl- 
edged by the followers of Bentham, who are now visibly 
shrinking from the extreme view he has taken of utilita- 
rianism, and seeking to include the idea of moral approba- 
tion, in order to give their doctrine some degree of strength 
and consistency. 

5. Into the political consequences of this system we 
shall not allow ourselves to enter at any length : one thing, 
however, there is, of which we would remind those who 
hold up the excellence of Bentham 's political writings as 
.a proof of the soundness of his ethical system ; we mean 
the fact that Hobbes, with a logic equally, if not more 
severe, deduced from the very same fundamental princi- 
ples the propriety of all government being grounded on 
absolute despotism, as the form best suited to the wants 
of human nature. That Bentham was so successful on 
the subject of jurisprudence, arose, we consider, from his 
giving up the strict view of the selfish system with which 
he started, and following the dictates of common sense 
.and of a benevolence which were more consonant with his 
own disposition than they were with his moral theory.* 

Moreover, there is a fundamental distinction between 

* Or rather, from his confounding the rule of general interestf with 
that of personal interest; but this, as Jouffroy has shown, Introduction 
to Ethics, Lecture XIV., involves the abandonment of the principle on 
which his system is founded. — Ed. 



168 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

the principles of legislation and those of private morality, 
which should never be lost sight of. The former principles 
suppose the existence of the latter, and must proceed in 
strict accordance with them, whether it appear a matter 
of policy to do so or not. The object of the jurist is, 
simply to take men with their moral feelings as they are, 
already fixed and determined, and so to direct their 
actions as to bring about the greatest welfare of the com- 
munity. Morality says, Fiat justitia ruai cczlum ; juris- 
prudence points out in loJiat way justice is to be done, so 
as to tend to the happiness of the whole nation. The one 
gives the absolute rule of action, the other only directs the 
details for social purposes. Moral law is immediately 
from God ; political law, though springing from moral 
principles, is an adaptation of man ; — the one is a code 
written upon the tablet of the human heart ; the other, a 
code written in the statute-book of the empire, conform- 
able, indeed, to moral law, but compiled for social utility. 
To morality, as a science, the utilitarian ground is entirely 
destructive, altering its universal and necessary aspect ; in 
politics, utility, directed by moral precept, must be a chief 
element in every enactment. Bentham, looking at the 
subject with the eye of a jurist, by degrees became blind 
to every thing but the utilitarian element, — an error which, 
while only partially dangerous in legislation, is to the mor- 
alist fatal and deceptive from the very first step. 

That Bentham was a great man, a courageous man, and 
in many respects a benevolent man, we believe all must 
be ready to ^dmit ; still, we cannot but think that he 
neither read enough to disabuse his mind of many a cher- 
ished notion, which a wider range of investigation would 
have exploded, nor ever cultivated enough that steady, 
reflective habit of mind which evolves truth from the ob- 
servation of our inward consciousness, and reduces, by a 
close analysis, the admitted facts of human nature to their 
primary origin. With unexampled patience, he developed 
the influence of pleasure and pain upon human actions ; 
but a deeper philosophy would have pointed out, that 
these are but the accompaniments of virtue, while the law 
and the imperative to its obedience come from a surer 
and a far more exalted source. 



JAMES MILL. 1G9 

III. General Objection to the FoUoivers of Eentham.] 
The followers of Mr. Bentham have carried to an unusual 
extent the prevalent fault of "the more modern advocates 
of utility, who have dwelt so exclusively on the outward 
advantages of virtue as to have lost sight of the delight 

^ which is a part of virtuous feeling, and of the beneficial 
influence of good actions upon the frame of the mind. 

" Benevolence towards others," says Mr. Mill, " pro- 
duces a return of benevolence from them." * The fact 
is true, and ought to be stated. But how unimportant is 
it in comparison with that which is passed over in silence, 
the pleasure of the affection itself, which, if it could be- 
come lasting and intense, would convert the heart into a 
heaven ! No one who has ever felt kindness, if he could 
accurately recall his feelings, could hesitate about their 
infinite superiority. The cause of the general neglect of 
this consideration is, that it is only when a gratification is 
something distinct from a state of mind, that we can easily 
learn to consider it as a pleasure. Hence the great error 
respecting the affections, where the inherent delight is not 
duly estimated, on account of that very peculiarity of being 
a part of a state of mind, which renders it unspeakably 
more valuable as independent of every thing without. The 
social affections are the only principles of human nature 
which have no direct pains. To have any of these desires 

.is to be in a state of happiness. The malevolent passions 
have properly no pleasures ; for that attainment of their 
purpose which is improperly so called consists only in 
healing or assuaging the torture which envy, jealousy, and 
malice inflict on the malignant mind. It might with as 
much propriety be said that the toothache and the stone 
have pleasures, because their removal is followed by an 

* Analysis of the Hitman Mind, Chap, xxiii. 

The author of this work, James Mill, was born at Montrose, in Scot- 
land, in 1773, and educated at Edinburgh, being destined for the church. 
He afterwards changed his views, established himself in London in 
1800, and soon became acquainted with Bentham. He published his 
History of British India in 1818, which procured for him a place in 
the home establishment of the East India Company. He was also a 
large contributor to the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, (af- 
terwards incorporated into the seventh edition of that work,) on sub- 
jects connected wiih politics and morals. He died at Kensington in 
1836. John Stuart Blill, a living writer of eminence, is his son. — Ed. 
15 



170 THE MOKAL FACULTY. 

agreeable feeling. These bodily disorders, indeed, are 
often cured by the process which removes the sufferings ; 
but the mental distempers of envy and revenge are nour- 
ished by every act of odious indulgence whicii for a mo- 
ment suspends their ])ain. 

The same observation is applicable to every virtuous, 
disposition, though not so obviously as to the benevolent 
affections. That a brave man is, on the whole, far less 
exposed to danger than a coward, is not the chief advan- 
tage of a courageous temper. Great dangers are rare ; 
but the constant absence of such painful and mortifying 
sensations as those of fear, and the steady consciousness 
of superiority to what subdues ordinary men, are a per- 
petual source of inward enjoyment. No man who has 
ever been visited by a gleam of magnanimity can place 
any outward advantage of fortitude in comparison with 
the feeling of being always able fearlessly to defend a 
righteous cause.* Even humility^ in spile of first ap- 
pearances, is a remarkable example. It has of late been 
unwarrantably used to signify that painful consciousness of 
inferiority which is the first stage of envy.f It is a term 
consecrated in Christian ethics to denote that disposition 
which, by inclining towards a modest estimate of our 
qualities, corrects the prevalent tendency of human nature 
to overvalue our merits and to overrate our claims. What 
can be a less doubtful or a much more considerable bless- 
ing than this constant sedative, which soothes and com- 
poses the irritable passions of vanity and pride ? What is 
more conducive to lasting peace of mind than the con- 
sciousness of proficiency in that most delicate species of 
equity which, in the secret tribunal of conscience, labors 
to be impartial in the comparison of ourselves with others .'' 
What can so perfectly assure us of the purity of our moral 
sense, as the habit of contemplating, not that excellence 

* According to Cicero's definition of fortitude, '■^Virtus pugnans pro 
(Bquitalc." The remains of the original sense of virtus, jnan/iood, give a 
beauty and force to these expressions, which cannot be preserved in our 
language. The Greek aperri and the German Tiigend original!)' de- 
noted strength, afterwards courage, and at last virtue. But the liappy 
derivation of virtus from vir gives an energy to the phrase of Cicero, 
whicli illustrates the use of etymology in the hands of a skilful writer. 

t Mr. Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, Chap. XXII. Sect. ii. 



JAMES MILL. 171 

which we hav^e reached, but that which is still to be pur- 
sued, — of not considering how far we may outrun others, 
but how far we are from the goal ? 

Those who have most inculcated the doctrine of utility 
have given another notable example of the very vulgar 
prejudice which treats the unseen as insignificant. Tucker 
is the only one of them who occasionally considers that 
most important effect of human conduct which consists in 
its action on the frame of the mind, by fitting its faculties 
and sensibilities for their appointed purpose. A razor or 
a penknife would well enough Cut cloth or meat ; but if 
they were often so used, they would be entirely spoiled. 
The same sort of observation is much more strongly appli- 
cable to habitual dispositions, which, if they be spoiled, 
we have no certain means of replacing or mending. What- 
ever act, therefore, discomposes the moral machinery of 
mind, is more injurious to the welfare of the agent than 
most disasters froi^ without can be ; for the latter are 
commonly limited and temporary ; the evil of the former 
spreads through the whole of life. Health of mind, as well 
as of body, is not only productive in itself of a greater sum 
of enjoyment than arises from other sources, but is the 
only condition of our frame in which we are capable of 
receiving pleasure from without. Hence it appears how 
incredibly absurd it is to prefer, on grounds of calculation, 
a present interest to the preservation of those mental habits 
on which our well-being depends. When they are most 
moral, they may often prevent us from obtaining advan- 
tages. It would be as absurd to desire to lower them for 
that reason, as it would be to weaken the body lest its 
strength should render it more liable to contagious dis- 
orders of rare occurrence. 

It is, on the other hand, impossible to combine the benefit 
of the general habit with the advantages of occasional de- 
viation ; for every such deviation either produces remorse, 
or weakens the habit, and prepares the way for its gradual 
destruction. He who obtains a fortune by the undetected 
forgery of a will, may indeed be honest in his other acts ; 
but if he had such a scorn of fraud before as he must him- 
self allow to be generally useful, he must suffer a severe 
punishment from contrition ; and he will be haunted with 



172 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

the fears of one who has lost his own security for his good 
conduct. In all cases, if they be well exanjined, his loss 
by the distemper of his mental frame will outweigh the 
profits of his vice. 

By repeating the like observation on similar occasions, 
it will be manifest that the infirmity of recollection, aggra- 
vated by the defects of language, gives an appearance of 
more selfishness to man than truly belongs to his nature ; 
and that the effect of active agents upon the habitual state 
of mind, one of the considerations to which the epithet 
"sentimental" has of late been applied in derision, is 
really among the most serious and reasonable objects of 
moral philosophy. When the internal pleasures and pains 
which accompany good and bad feelings, or rather form 
a part of them, and the internal advantages and disadvan- 
tages which folloio good and bad actions, are sufficiently 
considered, the comparative importance of outicard conse- 
quences will be more and more narrgvved ; so that the 
Stoical philosopher may be thought almost excusable for 
rejecting it altogether, were it not an indispensably neces- 
sary consideration for those in whom right habits of feel- 
ing are not sufficiently strong. They alone are happy, or 
even truly virtuous, who have little need of it. 

The later moralists wdio adopt the principle of utility 
have so misplaced it, that in their hands it has as great a 
tendency as any theoretical error can have to lessen the 
intrinsic pleasure of virtue, and to unfit our habitual feel- 
ings for being the most effectual inducements to good con- 
duct. This is the natural tendency of a discipline which 
brings utility too closely and frequently into contact with 
action. By this habit, in its best state, an essentially 
weaker motive is gradually substituted for others which 
must always be of more force. The frequent appeal to 
utility as the standard of action tends to introduce an un- 
certainty with respect to the conduct of other men, which 
would render all intercourse insupportable. It affords, 
also, so fair a disguise for selfish and malignant passions, 
as often to hide their nature from him who is their prey. 
Some taint of these mean and evil principles will at least 
creep in, and by their venom give an animation not its 
own to the cold desire of utility. The moralists who 



JAMES MILL. 173 

take an active part in those afiairs which often call out 
iinamiable passions, ought to guard with peculiar watch- 
fulness against self-delusions. The sin that must most 
easily beset them is that of sliding from general to par- 
ticular consequences, — that of trying single actions, in- 
stead of dispositions, habits, and rules, by the standard of 
utility, — that of authorizing too great a latitude for dis- 
cretion and policy in moral conduct, — that of readily 
allowing exceptions to the most important rules, — that of 
too lenient a censure of the use of doubtful means when 
the end seems to them good, — and that of believing un- 
philosophically, as well as dangerously, that there can be 
any measure or scheme so useful to the world as the ex- 
istence of men who would not do a base thing for any 
public advantage. It was said of Andrew Fletcher, " He 
would lose his life to serve his country, but would not do 
a base thing to save it." Let those preachers of utility 
who suppose that such a man sacrifices ends to means 
consider whether the scorn of baseness be not akin to the 
contempt of danger, and whether a nation composed of 
such men would not be invincible. But theoretical prin- 
ciples are counteracted by a thousand causes, which con- 
fine their mischief as well as circumscribe their benefits. 
Men are never so good or so bad as their opinions. All 
that can be with reason apprehended is, that they may 
always produce some part of their natural evil, and that 
the mischief will be greatest among the many who seek 
excuses for these passions. Aristippus found in the So- 
cratic representation of the union of virtue and happiness 
a pretext for sensuality ; and many Epicureans became 
voluptuaries in spite of the example of their master, easily 
dropping by degrees the limitations by which he guarded 
his doctrines. In proportion as a man accustoms him- 
self to be influenced by the utility of particular acts, 
without regard to rules, he approaches to the casuistry 
of the Jesuits, and to the practical maxims of Caesar 
Borgia. 

IV. JMr. MiWs Errors respecting Government and 
Education.'] Mr. Mill derives the whole theory of gov- 
15* 



174 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

ernmenl* from the single fact, that every man pursues his 
interest when he knows it ; W'hich he assumes to be a sort 
of self-evident practical principle, if such a phrase be not 
contradictory. That a man's pursuing the interest of 
another, or indeed any other object in nature, is just as 
conceivable as that he should pursue his own interest, is a 
proposition which seems never to have occurred to this 
acute and ingenious writer. Nothing, however, can be 
more certain than its truth, if the term " interest " be em- 
ployed in its proper sense of general well-being, which is 
the only acceptation in which it can serve the purpose of 
his arguments: If, indeed, the term be employed to de- 
note the gratification of a predominant desire, his proposi- 
tion is self-evident, but wholly unserviceable in his argu- 
ment ; for it is clear that individuals and multitudes often 
desire what they know to be most inconsistent with their 
general welfare. A nation, as much as an individual, and 
sometimes more, may not only mistake its interest, but, 
perceiving it clearly, may prefer the gratification of a strong 
passion to it. The whole fabric of his political reasoning 
seems to be overthrown by this single observation ; and . 
instead of attempting to explain the immense variety of 
political facts by the simple principle of a contest of in- 
terests, we are reduced to the necessity of once more re- 
ferring them to that variety of passions, habits, opinions, 
and prejudices, which we discover only by experience. 

Mr. Mill's Essay on Education f affords another exam- 
ple of the inconvenience of leaping at once from the most 
general laws to a multiplicity of minute appearances. 
Having assumed, or at least inferred from insuflicient 
premises, that the intellectual and moral character is en- 
tirely formed by circumstances, he proceeds, in the latter 
part of the essay, as if it were a necessary consequence of 
that doctrine, that we might easily acquire the power of 
combining and directing circumstances in such a manner 
as to produce the best possible character. Without dis- 
puting for the present the theoretical proposition, let us 

* Essay on Government, in the Encyclopccdia Britannica, seventh 
edition. His contributions to that work have also been collected in an 
octavo volume, and published separately. — Ed. 

t In the Encyclopccdia Britannica, seventh edition. 



JAMES MILL. 175 

consider what would be the reasonableness of similar ex- 
pectations in a more easily intelligible case. The general 
theory of the winds is pretty well understood ; we know 
that they proceed from the rushing of air from those por- 
tions of the atmosphere which are more condensed into 
those which are more rarefied ; but how great a chasm is 
there between that simple law and the great variety of 
facts which experience teaches us respecting winds ! The 
constant winds between the tropics are large and regular 
enough to be in some measure capable of explanation ; 
but who can tell why, in variable climates, the wind blows 
to-day from the east, to-morrow from the west ? Who 
can foretell what its shiftings and variations are to be ? 
Who can account for a tempest on one day, and a calm 
on another .'' Even if we could foretell the irregular and 
infinite variations, how far might we not still be from the 
power of combining and guiding their causes .'' No man 
but the lunatic in'the story of Rasselas ever dreamt that 
he could command the weather. The difficulty plainly 
consists in the multiplicity and minuteness of the circum- 
stances which act on the atmosphere. Are those which 
influence the formation of the human character likely to be 
less minute and multiplied ? * 

* In reply to this criticism, and to other parts of the volume from 
which it is taken, Mr. Mill published anonymously, in 1835, an octavo 
volume under the title of Ji Fragment on Mackintosh. On some points 
the defence is able and successful ; but the effect of the whole is greatly 
impaired by the vituperation, not to say scurrility, in which it abounds. 

After what has been said in the text, it is but justice to add, that the 
later followers or admirers of Bentham are not unable to see, or unwil- 
ling to acknowledge, his defects. A writer in the Westminster Review, 
for July, 1838, who begins by making the great hierophant of utilitari- 
anism to be one of " the two great seminal minds of England in their 
age," expresses Jiimself thus: — " Bentham's contempt of all other 
schools of thinkers, and his determination to create a philosophy wholly 
out of the materials furnished by his own mind, and by minds like his 
own, were his first disqualification as a philosopher. His second was 
the incompleteness of his own mind as a representative of universal 
human nature. In many of the most natural and strongest feelings of 
human nature he had no sympathy ; from many of its gravest expe- 
riences he was altogether cut off; and the faculty by which one mind 
understands a mind different from itself, and throws itself into the feel- 
ings of that other mind, was denied him by his deficiency of imagination. 

"Bentham's knowledge of human nature is wholly empirical ; and 
the empiricism of one who has had little experience. He had neither 
internal experience nor external ; the quiet, even tenor of his life and 



176 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 



CHAPTER III. 

ANALYSIS OF OUR MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND 
EMOTIONS. 

I. Butler'' s Proofs of Man's Moral J^ature.'\ Before 
proceeding to this extensive and difficult subject, I shall 
quote a passage from Dr. Butler, in which he has com- 
bined together, and compressed into the compass of a few 
paragraphs, all the most important arguments in proof of 
the existence of the moral faculty which have been hitherto 
under our review. While this quotation serves as a sum- 
mary of what has already been stated, it will, I hope, 
prepare us for entering on the following discussions with 
greater interest and a more enlightened curiosity. 

" That which renders beings capable of moral govern- 
ment is their having a moral nature, and moral faculties of 
perception and of action. Brute creatures are impressed 
and actuated by various instincts and propensities : so also 
are we. But, additional to this, we have a capacity for 
reflecting upon actions and characters, and making them 
an object to our thought ; and on doing this we naturally 

his healthiness of mind conspired to exclude him from both. He never 
knew prosperity nor adversity, passion nor satiety ; he never inid even 
the experience which sickness gives, — he lived from childhood to the 
age of eighty -five in boyish liealth. He knew no dejection, no lieavi- 
ness of heart. He never felt life a sore and a wearj^ burden. He was 
a boy to the last. Self-consciousness, that demon of the men of genius 
of our time, from Wordsworth to Byron, from Goethe to Chateaubriand, 
and to which this age owes most both of its cheerful and its mournful 
wisdom, never was awakened in him. How much of human nature 
slumbered in him he knew not, neither can we know. 

" This, then, is our idea of Bentham. He was a man both of remark- 
able endowments for philosophj' and of remarkable deficiencies for it; 
fitted beyond almost any man for dravsnng from his premises conclusions 
not only correct, but sufficiently precise and specific to be practical, but 
whose general conception of human nature and life furnished him with 
an unusually slender stock of premises. It is obvious what would be 
likely to be achieved b)"- such a man ; what a thinker thus gifted and 
thus disqualified could be in philosophy. He could be a systematic and 
logical half-man^ hunting half-tmths to their consequences and practical 
application, on a scale both of greatness and minuteness not previously 
exemplified : and t'us is tlie character which posterity will probably 
assign to Bentham." — Ed. 



MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 177 

and unavoidably approve some actions, under the peculiar 
view of their being virtuous and of good desert, and dis- 
approve others as vicious and of ill desert. That v^^e have 
this moral approving and disapproving faculty is certain 
from our experiencing it in ourselves, and recognizing it in 
each other. It appears from our exercising it unavoidably 
in the approbation and disapprobation even of feigned 
characters ; from the words right and icrong., odious and 
amiable^ base and ivorthy., with many others of like signifi- 
cation in all languages, applied to actions and characters ; 
from the many written systems of morals which suppose 
it, since it cannot be imagined that all these authors, 
throughout all these treatises, had absolutely no meaning 
at all to their words, or a meaning merely chimerical ; 
from our natural sense of gratitude, which implies a dis- 
tinction between. merely being the instrument of good and 
intending it ; from the like distinction every one makes 
between injury and mere harm, which Hobbes says is 
peculiar to mankind, and between injury and just punish- 
ment, a distinction plainly natural, prior to the considera- 
tion of human laws. It is manifest great part of common 
language and of common behaviour over the world is form- 
ed upon supposition of such a moral faculty, whether. called 
conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or divine reason, — 
whether considered as a perception of the understanding, 
or as a sentiment of the heart, or, which seems the truth, 
as including both. Nor is it at all doubtful, in the general, 
what course of action this faculty, or practical discerning 
power within us, approves, and what it disapproves. For, 
as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists, 
or whatever ground for doubt there may be about par- 
ticulars, yet in general there is in reality a universally 
acknowledged standard of it. It is that which all ages 
and all countries have made profession of in public, — it 
is that which every man you meet puts on the show of, — 
it is that which the primary and fundamental laws of all 
civil constitutions over the face of the earth make it their 
business and endeavour to enforce the practice of upon 
mankind, namely, justice, veracity, and regard to common 
good." * 

* Dissertation on the J\'ature of Virtue. 



178 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

Upon the various topics here suggested, a copious and 
instructive commentary might be written, but 1 think* it 
better to leave them in the concise and impressive form in 
which they are proposed by the author. 

II. Theoretical and PraclicalJMorals.^ The science of 
ethics has been divided by modern writers into two parts ; 
the one comprehending the theory of morals, and the other 
its practical doctrines. 

The questions about which the former is employed are 
chiefly the two following : First, by what principle of our 
constitution are we led to form the notion of moral distinc- 
tions, — whether by that faculty which perceives the dis- 
tinction between truth and falsehood in the other branches 
of human knowledge, or by a peculiar power of percep- 
tion (called by some the moral sense} which is pleased 
with one set of qualities and displeased with another .'' 
Secondly, what is the proper object of moral approbation 9 
or, in other words, what is the common quality or qualities 
belonging to all the different modes of virtue .'' Is it be- 
nevolence, or a rational self-love, or a disposition (result- 
ing from the ascendant of reason over passion) to act 
suitably to the different relations in which we are placed .'' 
These two questions seem to exhaust the whole theory 
of morals. The scope of the one is to ascertain the 
origin of our moral ideas ; that of the other to refer the 
phenomena of moral perception to their most simple and 
general laws. 

The practical doctrines of morality comprehend all 
those rules of conduct which profess to point out the 
proper ends of human pursuit, and the most effectual 
means of attaining them ; to which we may add, under the 
general title of ac/?n?"m'c/es, (if I may be allowed to borrow 
a technical word of Lord Bacon's,) all those literary com- 
positions, whatever be their particular form, which have 
for their aim to fortify and animate our good dispositions 
by delineations of the beauty, of the dignity, or of the 
utility of virtue. 

I shall not inquire at present into the justness of this 
division. I shall only observe that the words theory and 
practice are not in this instance employed in their usual 



MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 179 

acceptations. The theory of morals does not bear, for 
example, the same relation to the practice of morals that 
the theory of geometry bears to practical geometry. In 
this last science all the practical rules are founded on 
theoretical principles previously established. But in the 
former science the practical rules are obvious to the 
capacities of all mankind, vvliile the theoretical principles 
form one of the most difficult subjects of discussion that 
have ever exercised the ingenuity of metaphysicians. 

Although, however, a complete acquaintance with the 
practice of our duty does not presuppose any knowledge 
of the theory of morals, it does not therefore follow that 
false theoretical notions upon this subject may not be 
attended with very pernicious consequences. On the con- 
trary, nothing is more evident than this, that every system 
which calls in question the immutability of moral distinc- 
tions has a tendency to undermine the foundations of all 
the virtues, both private and public, and to dry up the best 
and purest sources of human happiness. When skeptical 
doubts have once been excited in the mind by the perusal 
of such systems, no exhortation to the practice of our duties 
can have any effect ; and it is necessary for us, before we 
think of addressing the heart, or influencing the will, to 
begin with undeceiving and enlightening the understanding. 
It is for this reason, that, in such an age as the present, 
when skeptical doctrines have been so anxiously dissemi- 
nated by writers of genius, it appears to me to be a still 
more essential object in academical instruction, to vindi- 
cate the theory of morals against the cavils of licentious 
metaphysicians, than to indulge in the more interesting and 
popular disquisitions of practical ethics. On the former 
subject, much yet remains to be done. On the latter, 
although the field of inquiry is by no means as yet com- 
pletely exhausted, the student may be safely trusted to his 
own serious reflections, guided by the precepts of those 
illustrious men, who, in different ages and countries, have 
devoted their talents to the improvement and happiness of 
the human race. 

In this department of literature no country whatever has 
surpassed our own ; whether we consider the labors of the 
great lights of the English Church, or the fugitive essays 



ISO MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

of those later writers who (after the example of Addison) 
have attempted to enlist in the cause of virtue and religion 
whatever aid fancy, and wit, and elegance could lend to 
the support of truth. It is scarcely necessary for me to 
mention the advantage which may be derived in the same 
study from the philosophical remains of ancient Greece 
and Rome, — due allowances being made for some un- 
fortunate prejudices produced or encouraged by violent 
and oppressive systems of policy. Indeed, with the ex- 
ception of a few such prejudices, it may with great truth 
be asserted, that they who have been most .successful, in 
modern times, in inculcating the duties of life, have been 
the moralists who have trod the most closely in the foot- 
steps of the Greek and Roman philosophers. The case 
is different with respect to the theory of morals, which, 
among the ancients, attracted comparatively but a small 
degree of attention, although one of the questions formerly 
mentioned (that concerning the object of moral approba- 
tion) was a favorite subject of discussion in their schools. 
The other question, however, (that concerning the 'princi- 
ple of moral approbation,) with the exception of a few hints 
in the writings of Plato, may be considered as in a great 
measure peculiar to modern Europe, having been chiefly 
agitated since the writings of Cud worth in opposition to 
those of Hobbes ; and it is this question, accordingly, 
(recommended at once by its novelty and difficulty to the 
curiosity of speculative men,) that has produced most of 
the theories which characterize and distinguish from each 
other the later systems of moral philosophy. 

III. Analysis of Moral Perceptions and Emotions.'] 
It appears to me that the diversity of these systems has 
arisen^, in a great measure, from the partial views which 
different writers have taken of the same complicated sub- 
ject ; that these systems are by no means so exclusive of 
each other as has commonly be^n imagined ; and that, 
in order to arrive at the truth, it is necessary for us, instead 
of attaching ourselves to any one, to avail ourselves of the 
lights which all of them have furnished. Our moral per- 
ceptions and emotions are, in fact, the result of different 
principles combined together. They involve a judgment 



HOBBES. 181 

of the understanding, and they involve also a feeling of 
the heart ; and it is only by attending to both that we can 
form a just notion of our moral constitution. In con- 
firmation of this remark, it will be necessary for us to 
analyze particularly the state of our minds, when we are 
spectators of any good or bad action performed by another 
person, or when we reflect on the actions performed by 
ourselves. On such occasions we are conscious of three 
difierent things : — 

1 . The perception of an action as right or wrong. 

2. An emotion of pleasure or of pain, varying in its de- 
gree according to the acuteness of our moral sensibility. 

3. A perception of the merit or demerit of the agent. 



Section I. 

OF THE PERCEPTION OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 

I. Views entertained by Hohhes.'] The controvei'sy 
concerning the origin of our moral ideas took its rise in 
modern times, in consequence of the writings of Mr. 
Hobbes. According to him, we approve of virtuous ac- 
tions, or of actions beneficial to society, from self-love, 
as we know that whatever promotes the interest of society 
has on that very account an indirect tendency to promote 
our own. He further taught, that, as it is to the institu- 
tion of government we are indebted for all the comforts 
and the confidence of social- life, the laws which the civil 
magistrate enjoins are the ultimate standards of morality. 

Dangerous as these doctrines are, some apology may 
be made for the author from the unfortunate circumstances 
of the times in which he lived. He had been a witness 
of the disorders which took place in England at the time 
of the dissolution of the monarchy by the death of Charles 
the First ; and, in consequence of his mistaken specula- 
tions on the politics of that period, he contracted a bias in 
favor of despotical government, and was led to consider it 
as the duty of a good citizen to strengthen, as much as 
possible, the hands of the civil magistrate, by inculcating 
the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance. It 
was with this view that he was led to maintain the philo- 
16 



182 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

sophical principles vvliich have been already mentioned. 
He seems likewise to have formed a very unfavorable 
idea of the clerical order, from the instances which his 
own experience afforded of their turbulence and ambition ; 
and on that account he wished to subject the consciences 
of men immediately to the secular powers. In conse- 
quence of this, his system, although offensive in a very 
high degree to all sound moralists, provoked in a more 
peculiar manner the resentment of the clergy, and drew on 
the author a great deal of personal obloquy, which neither 
his character in private life, nor his intentions as a writer, 
appear to have merited. 

n. Reply of his Jintagonisls.] Among the antagonists 
of Hobbes, the most eminent by far was Dr. Cudworth ; 
and indeed modern times have not produced an author 
who was better qualified to do justice to the very impor- 
tant argument he undertook, by his ardent zeal for the 
best interests of mankind, by his singular vigor and com- 
prehensiveness of thought, and by the astonishing treasures 
he had collected of ancient literature. 

That our ideas of right and wrong are not derived from 
positive law, Cudworth concluded from the following argu- 
ment : — " Suppose such a law to be established, it must 
either be right to obey it, and wrong to disobey it, or 
indifferent whether we obey or disobey it. But a law 
which it is indifferent whether we obey or not cannot, it is 
evident, be the source of moral distinctions ; and, on the 
contrary supposition, if it is right to obey the law% and 
wrong to disobey it, these distinctions must have had an 
existence antecedent to the law."* In a word, it is from 
natural law that positive law derives all its force. 

The same argument against Hobbes is thus stated by 
Lord Shaftesbury. 

"It is ridiculous to say there is any obligation on man 
to act sociably or honestly in a formed government, and 
not in that which is commonly called the state of nature. 
For, to speak in the fashionable language of our modern 
philosophy, society being founded on a compact, the sur- 

* Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. iii. Cbap. ii. 



HOBBES. 183 

render made of every man's private unlimited right into 
the hands of the majority, or such as the majority should 
appoint, was of free choice, and by a promise. Now the 
promise itself was made in a state of nature., and that 
which could make a promise obligatory in the state of 
nature must make all other acts of humanity as much our 
real duty and natural part. Thus faith, justice, honesty, 
and virtue must have been as early as the state of nature, 
or they could never have been at all. The civil union or 
confederacy could never make right or wrong if they sub- 
sisted not before. He who was free to any villany be- 
fore his contract will and ought to make as free with his 
contract when he sees fit. The natural knave has the 
same reason to be a civil one, and may dispense with his 
politic capacity as oft as he sees occasion ; it is only 
his word stands in the way. A man is obliged to keep 
his word. Why ? Because he has given his word to 
keep it. Is not this a notable account of the original of 
moral justice, and the rise of civil government and alle- 
giance ? " * 

To these observations it may be added, that our notions 
of right and wrong are so far from owing their origin to 
positive institutions, that they afford us the chief standard 
to which we appeal, in comparing different positive institu- 
tions with each other. Were it not for this test, how 
could we pronounce one code to be more humane, more 
hberal, or more equitable than another ? or how could we 
feel that, in our own municipal regulations, some are con- 
sonant and others repugnant to the principles of justice. 
" Let any one," says a learned and judicious civilian, " ac- 
quaint himself with the sanguinary system of Draco, and 
then view it as tempered with the philosophy of Solon, 
and the softer refinements of a better age ; let him look 
with the eye of speculation upon an establishment that 
directs 'not to seethe a kid in its mother's milk'; nor to 
' muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn '; when our 
brother's cattle go astray or fall down by the way, not to 
'hide ourselves from them'; that acquits the betrothed 
damsel who was violated at a distance, and out of hearing, 

* Freedom of Wit, Part III. Sect. i. 



184 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

upon this compassionate suggestion, — 'For he found her 
in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was 
none to save her'; let him reflect, I say, on his own 
feelings when he considers these different enactments, and 
then judge how far they agree with the philosophy of 
Hobbes."* 

Agreeably to this view of positive institutions, Demos- 
thenes remarks, — " The laws of a country may be regard- 
ed as a criterion for estimating the morals of the state, and 
the prevailing character of the people."! 

III. Origin and History of Hobbes''s Doctrine-I It is 
justly observed by Cudworth, that the doctrines now under 
consideration are not peculiar to the system of Hobbes ; 
and that similar opinions have been entertained in all ages 
by those writers who were either anxious to flatter the 
passions of tyrannical rulers, or who had a secret bias to 
atheistic and Epicurean principles. 

In confirmation of this remark, he takes a review of the 
principal attempts that have been made to undermine the 
foundations of morals, both in ancient and modern times, 
and interweaves with this history many profound reflec- 
tions of his own. The following paragraphs contain the 
substance of this part of his work, and I hope will furnish 
an interesting, as well as useful, introduction to the reason- 
ings I am afterwards to offer in vindication of the reality 
and immutability of moral distinctions. 

"As the vulgar generally look no higher for the origi- 

* Taylor On the Civil Laic, p. 159. 

t ^dv. Timocrat. Taylor gives the passage from which this is taken 
in the version of the Latin translator: — " Illud igitur vobis est etiam 
considerandum, multos GrsBcorum sspe decrevisse, vestris utendum 
esse legibus: id quod vobis laudi haud injuria ducitis. Nam verum 
illud mihi videtur, quod quendam apud vos dixisse ferunt : omnes cot- 
datos in ea esse sententia, ut leges nihil aliud esse putent quam mores 
civitales. Danda igitur est opera, ut ete quam optimse esse videantur." 

[A new interest has been awakened of late in Hobbes and liis 
writings. See Cousin, Cnurs d'Hisloire de la Philosophie Morale av 
XVfll" Siecle, Premiere Partie : Ecole Sensiialiste, Lemons VII. - IX. 
Jouffroy, Introduction to Ethics, Lectures XIII. and XIV. Damiron, 
L' Hi.stoire de la Philosophir au XVII'^- Si&cle, Liv. III. Hazlitt's Liter- 
ary Rrimains, Essay VI. Blakey's History of Moral Science, Chap. IV^. 
Mackintosh's Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Sect. IV. Fragment on 
Mackintosh, Sect. II. Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 
Vol. III. Chap. iii. Sect, iv] 



HOBBES. 185 

nal of moral good and evil, just and unjust, than the codes 
and pandects, the tables and laws, ol' their country and 
religion, so there have not wanted pretended philosophers 
in all ages^ who have asserted nothing to be good and 
evil, just and unjust, naturally and immutably^ qvasi xnl 
axivYjTCxig ; but that all these things were positive, arbitrary, 
and factitious only. Such Plato mentions, in his Tenth 
Book, De Legibus, who maintained, ' that nothing at all 
was naturally just, but men, changing their opinions con- 
cerning them perpetually, sometimes made one thing just, 
sometimes another ; but whatever is decreed and consti- 
tuted, that for the time is valid, being made so by acts 
and laws, but not by any nature of its own.' And Aris- 
totle more than once takes notice of this opinion in his 
Ethics. ' Things honest and just, which politics are con- 
versant about, have so great a variety and uncertainty in 
them, that they seem to be only by law and not by nature.' * 
And afterwards f — having divided to 8iy.aiov noXtTir.or, 
'that which is politically just,' into cpvaixov, i. e. 'natural,' 
'which has everywhere the same force,' and Toi.iLy.6i', 
i. e. ' legal,' ' which, before there be a law made, is indif- 
ferent, but, when once the law is made, is determined to 
be just or unjust ' — he adds, ' Some there are that think 
there is no other just or unjust but what is made by law 
and men, because that which is natural is immutable, and 
hath everywhere the same force, whereas jura and justa, 
"rights" and "just things," are everywhere different.' 
The latter, therefore, they conceive to be analogous to 
wine and wheat measures, which vary from place to place, 
according to local customs ; the former they compare to 
the properties of fire.) which produce the same effects in 
Persia and Greece. 

" After these succeeded Epicurus, the reviver of the 
Democritical philosophy, the frame of whose principles 
must needs lead him to deny justice and injustice to be 
natural things ; and therefore he determines that they 
arise wholly from mutual pacts and covenants of men, 
made for their own convenience and utility. ' Those 
living creatures that could not make mutual covenants 

* Ethic. Mc. Lib. I. c. i. t Lib. V. c. x. 

16* 



186 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

together not to hurt, nor to be hurt, by one another, could 
not, for this cause, have any such thing as just or unjust 
among them. And there is the same reason for those 
nations that either will not or cannot make such com- 
pacts : for there is no such thing as justice by itself, but 
only in the mutual congresses of men.' Or, (as the late 
compiler of the Epicurean system expresses the same 
meaning,) ' there are some who think that those things 
which are just are just according to their proper, unvaried 
nature, and that the laws do not make them just, but only 
prescribe according to that nature which they have : but 
the thing is not so.^ * 

" And since in this latter age the physiological hypoth- 
eses of Democritus and Epicurus have been revived, and 
successfully applied to the solving of some of the phe- 
nomena of the visible world, there have not wanted some 
that have endeavoured to vent also those other paradoxes 
of the same philosophers, viz. that there is no incorporeal 
substance, nor any natural difference between good and 
evil, just and unjust, and to recommend the same under a 
show of w-isdom, as the deep and profound mysteries of 
the atomical and corpuscular philosophy, as if senseless 
naatter and atoms were the original of all things, according; 
to the song of old Silenus in Virgil. Of this sort is that 
late writer of ethics and politics, who asserts ' that there 
are no authentic doctrines concerning just and unjust, 
good and evil, except the laws which are established in 
every city ; and that it concerns none to inquire whether 
an action be reputed just or unjust, good or evil, except 
such only whom the community have appointed to be the 
interpreters of their laws.' f ' In the state of nature,' ac- 
cording to him, ' nothing can be unjust, and the notions of 
right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. 

* It may be proper to mention that Cudvvorth alludes here to Gas- 
sendi, who was at much pains to revive the philosophy of Epicurus, 
both in physics and morals, rejecting, however, or palliating those parts 
of it which are most exceptionable. With this philosopher, (who ap- 
pears to have been a most amiable and exemplary man in private life, 
and who, in learning, was not surpassed by any of his contemporaries,) 
Hobbes lived in habits of very intimate friendship during his long resi- 
dence in France. See Gassendi Opera, Tom. V. pp. 12'J et scq. 

t Hobbes, De Cive, Praefatio. 



HOBBES. 187 

Where there is no common power there is no law ; where 
no law no injustice.' * ' No law can be unjust.' f Nay, 
temperance is no more naturally right, according to this 
philosopher, than justice. ' Sensuality, in the sense in 
which it is condemned, hath no place till there be laws.'J 

" But whatsoever was the true meaning of these phi- 
losophers that affirm justice and injustice to be only by 
law, and not by nature, certain it is that diverse modern 
iheologers do not only seriously, but zealously, contend, in 
like manner, that there is nothing absolutely, intrinsically, 
and naturally good and evil, just and unjust, antecedently 
to any positive command or prohibition of God, but that 
the arbitrary will and pleasure of God, (that is an Omnip- 
otent Being, devoid of all essential and natural justice,) 
by its commands and prohibitions, is the first and only 
rule and measure thereof. Whence it follows unavoida- 
bly, that nothing can be imagined so grossly wicked, or 
so foully unjust or dishonest, but, if it were supposed to be 
commanded by this omnipotent Deity, must needs, upon 
that hypothesis, forthwith become holy, just, and righteous. 
For, though the ancient fathers of the Christian Church 
were very abhorrent from this doctrine, yet it crept up 
afterward in the scholastic age, Ockham being among the 
first that maintained ' that there is no act evil, but as it is 
prohibited by God, and which cannot be made good if it 
be commanded by him.' And herein Petrus Alliacus and 
Andreas de Novo Castro, with others, quickly followed 
him. 

" Now the necessary and unavoidable consequences of 
this opinion are such as these: — 'That to love God is by 
nature an indifferent thing, and is morally good only be- 
cause it is enjoined by his command ' ; ' that holiness is 
not a conformity with the divine nature and attributes ' ; 
' that God hath no natural inclination to the good of the 
creatures, and might justly doom an innocent creature to 
eternal torment' ; — ail which propositions, with others of 
the kind, are word for word asserted by some late authors. 
Though I think not fit to mention the names of any of 
them in this place, excepting only one, Joannes Szyd- 

* Leviathan, Part I. Chap. 13. t Ibid., Part II. Chap. 30. 

t Ibid., Part I. Chap. 6. 



188 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

lovius, who, in a book published at Franeker, hath pro- 
fessedly avowed and maintained the grossest of them. And 
yet neither he, nor the rest, are to be thought any more 
blameworthy herein than many others, that, holding the 
same premises, have either dissembled or disowned those 
conclusions which unavoidably follow therefrom, but rather 
to be commended for their openness, simplicity, and inge- 
nuity in representing their opinion naked to the world, 
such as indeed it is, without any veil or mask. 

" Wherefore, since there are so many, both philoso- 
phers and theologians, that seemingly and verbally ac- 
knowledge such things as moral good and evil, just and 
unjust, yet contend, notwithstanding, that these are not by 
nature hut institution, and that there is nothing naturally 
or immutably just or unjust, I shall from hence fetch the 
rise of this ethical discourse or inquiry concerning things 
good and evil, just and unjust, laudable and shameful, de- 
monstrating, in the first place, that, if there be any thing 
at all good or evil, just or unjust, there must of necessity 
be something naturally and immutably good and just. 
And from thence I shall proceed afterward to show what 
this natural, immutable, and eternal justice is, with the 
branches and species of it."* 

IV. Cudwortli's Theory of Morals.'] The foregaing very 
long quotation, while it contains much valuable information 
with respect to the history of moral science, will be suffi- 
cient to convey a general idea of the scope of Cudworih's 
ethical inquiries, and of the prevailing opinions among phi- 
losophers upon this subject, at the time when he wrote. 
For the details of his argument I must refer to his work. 
It is sufficient for my present purpose to observe, that he 
seems plainly to have considered our notions of right and 
wrong as incapable of analysis, that is, (to use the language 
of more modern writers,) he considered them as simple 
ideas or notions, of which the names do not admit of defini- 
tion. In this respect, also, his philosophy differs from that 

* Eternal and hnvvitahle Moralitij, Book I. Chap. i. Here, as in 
some otiier cases, Mr. Stewart does not cite the whole of the passage 
continuously, as it stands in the original, but those parts only which are 
to his purpose, sometimes giving merely the substance. — Ed. 



CUDWORTH. • 189 

of Hobbes, v/ho, as we have already remarked, ascribes 
our mora] judgments, not to an immediate perception of 
the qualities of actions, but to a view of their tendencies, 
which we approve or disapprove according as they appear 
to be conducive or not to our own interest, or to that of 
society. Indeed, according to Hobbes, these two ten- 
dencies coincide, or rather are the same, for he appre- 
hended that all our zeal for the public good originates in a 
selfish principle. " Man," he said, " is driven to society 
by necessity, and whatever promotes its interest is judged 
to have a remote tendency to promote his own." Thus 
he attempts to account for our approbation of virtue by 
resolving it into self-love, and, of consequence, to resolve 
the notions expressed by the words right and wrong into 
other notions more simple and general. This theory I 
have already endeavoured to refute at some length, and I 
have only now to add to what was formerly remarked with 
respect to it, that, if it were agreeable to fact, the words 
right and wrong would be synonymous with advantageous 
and disadvantageous ; and to say that those actions are 
right which are calculated to promote our own happiness 
would be an identical proposition. 

Cudworth's opinion, on the contrary, led him to con- 
sider our perception of right and wrong as an ultimate fact 
in our nature. Indeed, to those whose judgments are not- 
warped by preconceived theories, no fact with respect to 
the human mind can well appear more incontestable. We 
can define the words right and wrong only by synonymous 
words and phrases, or by the properties and necessary 
concomitants of what they denote. Thus, "• we may say 
of the word rights that it expresses what we ought to do, 
what is fair and honest, what is approvable, what every 
man professes to be the rule of his conduct, what all men 
praise, and what is in itself laudable, though no man 
praise if."* In such definitions and explanations it is 
evident we only substitute a synonymous expression in- 
stead of the word defined, or we characterize the quality 
which the word denotes by some circumstance connected 
with it or resulting from it as a consequence ; and there- 

* Reid, On the Active Powers, Essay III. Part III. Chap. v. 



190 MORAL, PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

fore we may, with confidence, conclude that the word in 
question expresses a simple idea. 

The two most important conclusions, then, which result 
from Cudworth's reasonings in opposition to Hobbes are 
these : — First, that the mind is able to form antecedently 
to positive institution the ideas of right and wrong ; and 
secondly, that these words express simple ideas, or ideas 
incapable of analysis. 

From these conclusions of Cudworth a further question 
naturally arose, — how the ideas of right and wrong were 
formed, and to what principle of our constitution they 
ought to be referred. This very interesting question did 
not escape the attention of Cudworth. And, in answer to 
it, he endeavoured to show that our notions of moral dis- 
tinctions are formed by reason, or, in other words, by the 
power which distinguishes truth from falsehood. And 
accordingly it became, for some time, the fashionable 
language among moralists to say that virtue consisted, not 
in obedience to the law of a superior, but in a conduct 
conformable to reason. 

At the time when Cudworth wrote, no accurate classifi- 
cation had been attempted of the principles of the human 
mind. His account of the office of reason, accordingly, 
in enabling us to perceive the distinction between right 
and wrong, passed without censure, and was understood 
merely to imply, that there is an eternal and immutable 
distinction between right and wrong, no less than between 
truth and falsehood ; and that both these distinctions are 
perceived by our rational poioers, or by those powers 
which raise us above the brutes.* 

V. Connection of Lockers Theory of the Origin of 
Ideas ivith this Inquiry.'] The publication of Locke's 
Essay introduced into this part of science a precision of 
expression unknown before, and taught philosophers to 
distinguish a variety of powers which had formerly been 
very generally confounded. With these great merits, 
however, his work has capital defects, and perhaps in no 

* For some curious notices of Cudworth and the fate of his writings, 
See D'Israeli's -Ameiiities of Literature, under the head of The True 
Intellectual System of the Universe. — Ed. 



HUTCHESON. 191 

part of it are these defects more important than in the 
attempt he has made to deduce the origin of our knowl- 
edge entirely from sensation and reflection. To the 
former of these sources he refers the ideas we receive by 
our external senses, — of colors, sounds, hardness, &c. 
To the latter, the ideas we derive from consciousness of 
our own mental operations, — of memory, imagination, 
volition, pleasure, pain, &c. These, according to him, 
are the sources of all our simple ideas ; and the only 
power that the mind possesses is to perform certain op- 
erations of analysis, combination, comparison, &c., on the 
materials with which it is thus supplied. 

It was this system of Locke's which led him to those 
dangerous opinions that were formerly mentioned concern- 
ing the nature of moral distinctions, which he seems to 
have considered as entirely the offspring of education and 
fashion. Indeed, if the words right and wrong neither ex- 
press simple ideas, nor relations discoverable by reason, 
it will not be found easy to avoid adopting this conclusion. 

In order to reconcile Locke's account of the origin of 
our ideas with the immutability of moral distinctions, dif- 
ferent theories were proposed concerning the nature of 
virtue. According to one,* for example, it was said to 
consist in a conduct conformable to truth ; according to 
another,! in a conduct conformable to ihe fUness of things. 
The great object of all these theories may be considered 
as the same, to remove right and wrong from the class of 
simple ideas, and to resolve moral rectitude into a con- 
formity with some relation perceived by reason or by the 
understanding. 

VI. Huicheson''s Theory of a Moral /Sense.] Dr. 
Hutcheson saw clearly the vanity of these attempts, and 
hence he was led, in compliance with the language of 
Locke's philosophy, to refer the origin of our moral ideas 
to a particular power of perception, to which he gave the 

*^ Mr. Wollaston, in his Religion of Nature Delineated. 

t Dr. Clarke, in his Discourse concerning the Urichangeable Obligations 
of JYatural, Religion, and in other works. [For the connection between 
Locke and the subsequent English ethical theories, see Jouftroy, Lectures 
XXL and XXIL] 



192 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

name of the moral sense. " All the ideas," says he, " or 
the materials of our reasoning or judging, are received by 
some immediate powers of perception, internal or external, 
which we may call senses.''^ " Reasoning or intellect 
seems to raise no new species of ideas, but to discover or 
discern the relations of those received." * 

According to this system, as it has been commonly ex- 
plained, our perceptions of right and wrong are impres- 
sions which our minds are made to receive from particular 
actions, similar to the relishes and aversions given us for 
particular objects of the external and internal senses. 

That this was Dr. Hutcheson's own idea appears from 
the following passage, in which he endeavours to obviate 
some dangerous notions which were supposed to follow 
from this doctrine. " Let none imagine that calling the 
ideas of virtue and vice perceptions of sense^ upon appre- 
hending the actions and affections of another, does dimin- 
ish their reality more than the like assertions concerning 
all pleasure and pain, happiness or misery. Our reason 
often corrects the report of our senses about the natural 
tendency of the external action, and corrects rash conclu- 
sions about the affections of the agent. But whether our 
moral sense be subject to such a disorder as to have dif- 
ferent perceptions, from the same apprehended affections 
in an agent, at different times, as the eye may have of the 
colors of an unaltered object, it is not easy to determine ; 
perhaps it will be hard to find any instance of such a 
change. What reason could correct if it fell into such a 
disorder, I know not, except suggesting to its remem- 
brance its former approbations, and representing the gen- 
eral sense of mankind. But this does not prove ideas of 
virtue and vice to be previous to a sense, more than a like 
correction of the ideas of color in a person under the 
jaundice proves that colors are perceived by reason pre- 
viously to sense." f 

Mr. Hume, whose philosophy coincides in this resjject 
with Dr. Hutcheson's, has expressed himself on this sub- 
ject still more explicitly. " As virtue is an end, and is 
desirable on its own account, without fee or reward, 

* JVuture and Conduct of the Passions, Treatise II. Sect. i. 
t Ibid., Treatise II. Sect. iv. 



HUTCHESON. 193 

merely for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys, it 
is requisite that there should be some sentiment which it 
touches, some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you 
please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, 
and which embraces the one and rejects the other. 

"Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and 
of taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys the 
knowledge of truth and falsehood ; the latter gives the 
sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue. The 
one discovers objects as they really stand in nature, with- 
out addition or diminution ; the other has a productive 
faculty, and, gilding or staining all natural objects with the 
colors borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a man- 
ner, a new creation. Reason, being cool and disengaged, 
is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse re- 
ceived from appetite or inclination, by showing us the 
means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery. Taste, 
as it gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes hap- 
piness or misery, becomes a motive to action, and is the 
first spring or impulse to desire and volition. From cir- 
cumstances and relations, known or supposed, the former 
leads us to the discovery of the concealed and unknown. 
After all circumstanc-es and relations are laid before us, 
the latter makes us feel from the whole a new sentiment 
of blame or approbation. The standard of the one, being 
founded on the nature of things, is eternal and inflexible, 
even by the will of the Supreme Being. The standard 
of the other, arising from the internal frame and constitu- 
tion of animals, is ultimately derived from that Supreme 
Will which bestowed on each being its peculiar nature, 
and arranged the several classes and orders of existence." * 

In the passage now quoted from Mr. Hume, a slight 
hint is given of his skepticism with respect to the immuta- 
bility of moral distinctions ; but, in some other parts of 
his writings, he has openly and avowedly expressed his 
opinions upon this important question. The words right 
and ivrong (according to him) signify nothing in the ob- 
jects themselves to which they are apphed, any more than 
the words siveet and bitter, pleasant and painful, but only 

* Principles of Morals, Appendix I. 
17 



194 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

certain effects in the mind of the spectator. As it is im- 
proper, therefore, (according to the doctrines of some 
modern philosophers,) to say of an object of taste that it 
is sweet, or of heat that it is in the fire, so it is equally 
improper to say of actions that they are right or wrong. 
It is absurd to speak of morality as a thing independent 
and unchangeable, inasmuch as it arises from an arbitrary 
relation between our constitution and particular objects. 
The distinction of moral good and evil is founded on the 
pleasure or pain which results from the view of any senti- 
ment or character ; and, as that pleasure or pain cannot 
be unknown to the person who feels it, it follows that 
there is just so much vice or virtue in any character as 
every one places in it ; and that it is impossible in this 
particular we can ever be mistaken.* 

Before we proceed to an examination of these conclu- 
sions, it may be worth while to remark, that they have 
not even the merit of originality ; for we find from the 
Thecetetus of Plato, as well as from other remains of an- 
tiquity, that the same skepticism prevailed among the 
Grecian sophists, and was supported by nearly the same 
arguments. Protagoras and his followers extended it to 
all truth, physical as well as moral, and maintained that 
every thing was relative to perception. The following 
maxims in particular have a wonderful coincidence with 
Hume's philosophy. " Nothing is true or false, any more 
than sweet or sour, in itself, but relatively to the perceiv- 
ing mind." " Man is the measure of all things, and every 
thing is that, and no other, which to every one it seems to 
be, so that there can be nothing true, nothing existent, dis- 
tinct from the mind's own perceptions." 

With respect to this skeptical philosophy, as it is taught 
in the writings of Hume, it appears evidently, from what 
has been already said, to be founded entirely on the sup- 
position, that our perception of the moral qualities of ac- 
tions has some analogy to our perception of the sensible 

* "Were I not afraid of appearing too philosophical, I should remind 
my reader of that famous doctrine, supposed to be fully proved in modern 
times, that tastes and colors, and all other sensible qualities, lie, not in 
the bodies, but merely in the senses. The case is the same with beauty 
and deformity, virtue and vice." — Hume's Essays, Moral, Polilical, and 
Literary, Part I. Essay XVIII. 



. HUTCHESON. 195 

qualities of matter ; and therefore it becomes a very in- 
teresting inquiry for us to examine how far this supposition 
is agreeable to fact. Indeed, this is the most important 
question that can be stated with respect to the theory of 
morals ; and yet I confess it appears to me that the ob- 
scurity in which it is involved arises chiefly, if not wholly, 
from the use of indefinite and ambiguous terms. 

That moral distinctions are perceived by a sense is im- 
plied in the definition of a sense already quoted from Dr. 
Hutcheson. " All the ideas, or the materials of our rea- 
soning or judging, are received by some immediate powers 
of perception, internal or external, which we may call 
senses. Reasoning or intellect seems to raise no new 
species of ideas, but to discover or discern the relations 
of those received." If this definition be admitted, there 
cannot be a doubt that the origin of our moral ideas must 
be referred to a sense ; at least there can be no doubt 
upon this point among those who hold, with Cudworth 
and with Price, that the words right and ivrong express 
simple ideas. The latter of these authors, a most zealous 
opposer of a moral sense, (and although one of the driest 
and least engaging of our English moralists, yet certainly 
one of the most sound and judicious,) grants that the 
words right and ivrong are incapable of a definition, and 
considers a want of attention to this circumstance as a 
principal source of the errors which have misled philoso- 
phers in treating of this part of moral science. " It is a 
very necessary previous observation," says he, "that 
right and icrong denote simple ideas, and are therefore to 
be ascribed to some power of immediate perception in the 
human mind. He that doubts need only try to enumerate 
the simple ideas they signify, or to give definitions of them 
when applied [suppose to beneficence or cruelty], which 
shall amount to more than synonymous expressions. From 
not attending to this [from giving definitions of these 
ideas, and attempting to derive them from deduction or 
reasoning'] has proceeded most of that confusion in which 
the question concerning the foundation of morals has been 
involved. There are, undoubtedly, some actions that are 
ultimately approved, and for justifying which no reason 
can be assigned, as there are some ends which are ulti- 



•196 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

mately desired, and for choosing which no reason can be 
given. Were not this true, there would be an infinite 
series or progression of reasons and ends subordinate to 
one another. There would be nothing at which to stop, 
and therefore nothing that could at all be approved or de- 
sired." * 

It appears fronm the foregoing passage that Dr. Price, 
as well as Dr. Hutcheson, ascribes our ideas of moral dis- 
tinctions to a power of immediate perception in the mind, 
and therefore the difference between them turns entirely 
on the propriety of the definition of a sense which Dr. 
Hutcheson has given. 

It may be further observed, in justification of Dr. 
Hutcheson, that the skeptical consequences deduced from 
his supposition of a moral sense do not necessarily result 
from it. Unfortunately, most of his illustrations were 
taken from the secondary qualities of matter, which, since 
the time of Descartes, philosophers have been in general 
accustomed to refer to the mind, and not to the external 
object. But if we suppose our perception of right and 
wrong to be analogous to the perception of extension and 
figure and other primary qualities, the reality and immuta- 
bility of moral distinctions seem to be placed on a founda- 
tion sufficiently satisfactory to a candid inquirer. That 
our notions of primary qualities are necessarily accom- 
panied with a conviction of their separate and independent 
existence was formerly shown ; and, therefore, to com- 
pare our perception of right and wrong to our perception 
of extension and of figure, although it may not, perhaps, be 
very accurate or philosophical, does not imply any skepti- 
cism with respect to the immutability of moral distinctions ; 
at least does not justify those skeptical inferences which 
Mr. Hume has endeavoured to deduce from Dr. Hutche- 
son's language. 

The definition, however, of a sense which Dr. Hutche- 
son has given is by far too general, and was plainly sug- 
gested to him by Locke's account of the- origin of our 
ideas. The w^ords cause and effect, duration, number, 
equality, identity, and many others, express simple ideas 

* Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, Chap. I. Sect. iii. 



PRICE. 197 

as well as the words right and lorong ; and yet it would 
surely be absurd to ascribe each of them to a particular 
power of perception [meaning thereby a sense]. Not- 
withstanding this circumstance, as the expression moral 
sense has now the sanction of use, and as, when properly 
explained, it cannot lead to any bad consequences, it may 
be still retained without inconvenience in ethical disquisi- 
tions. It has been much in fashion among moralists since 
the time of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, nor was it an in- 
novation introduced by them ; for the ancients often speak 
of a sensus recti et honesti ; and, in our own language, a 
sense of duty is a phrase not only employed by philoso- 
phers, but habitually used in common discourse.* 

VII. Price^s Theory of Intuitive Perception.] To 
what part of our constitution, then, shall we ascribe the 
origin of the ideas of right and wrong ? Dr. Price (re- 
turning to the antiquated phraseology of Cudworth) says 
to the understandings and endeavours to show, in opposi- 
tion to Locke and his followers, that " the power which 
understands, or the faculty that discerns truth, is itself a 
source of new ideas." 

This controversy turns solely on the meaning of words. 
The origin of our ideas of right and wrong is manifestly 
the same with that of the other simple ideas already men- 
tioned ; and, whether it be referred to the understanding 
or not, seems to be a matter of mere arrangement, pro- 
vided it be granted that the words right and ivrong express 
qualities of actions, and not merely a power of exciting 
certain agreeable or disagreeable emotions in our minds. 

It may perhaps obviate some objections against the lan- 
guage of Cudworth and Price to remark, that the word 
reason is used in senses which are extremely different : 
sometimes to express the whole of those powers which 
elevate man above the brutes, and constitute his rational na- 
ture, — more especially, perhaps, his intellectual powers ; 

^ For further notices of Hutcheson and the sentimental moralists 
generally, see Cousin, Cours dkHistoire de la Philosophie Morale uu 
XVIIl"- Si^de, Seconde Partie : Ecole Ecossaise. Jouffroy, Introduction 
to Ethics, Lectures XVI. -XX. ; and Alexander Smith s Philosophy of 
Morals, Part I. Chap. iii. — Ed. 
17* 



198 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

sometimes to express the power of deduction or argumen- 
tation. The former is the sense in which the word is 
used in comm.on discourse ; and it is in this sense that it 
seems to be employed by those writers who refer to it the 
origin of our moral ideas. Their antagonists, on the other 
hand, understand in general, by reason, the power of de- 
duction or argumentation ; a use of the word whicli is not 
unnatural, from the similarity between the words reason 
and reasonings but which is not agreeable to its ordinary 
meaning. " No hypothesis," says Dr. Campbell, "hither- 
to invented hath shown that, by means of the discursive 
faculty, without the aid of any other mental power, we 
could ever obtain a notion either of the beautiful or the 
good."* The remark is undoubtedly true ; and it may 
be applied to all those systems which ascribe to reason 
the origin of our moral ideas, if the expressions ' reason ' 
and 'discursive faculty ' be used as synonymous. But if the 
word reason be used in a more general sense to denote 
merely our rational and intellectual nature, there does not 
seem to be much impropriety in ascribing to it the origin 
of those simple notions which are net excited in the mind 
by the immediate operation of the senses, but w'hich arise 
in consequence of the exercise of the intellectual powers 
upon their various objects. 

A variety of intuitive judgments might be mentioned in- 
volving simple ideas, which it is impossible to trace to any 
origin but to the power which enables lis to form these 
judgments. Thus it is surely an intuitive truth, that the 
sensations of which I am conscious, and all those I re- 
member, belong to one and the same being, which I call 
myself. Here is an intuitive judgment involving the sim- 
ple idea of identity. In like manner, the changes w'hich 
I perceive in the universe impress me with a conviction 
that some cause must have operated to produce them. 
Here is an intuitive judgment involving the simple idea of 
causation. When we consider the adjacent angles made 
by a straight line standing upon another, and perceive that 
their sum is equal to two right angles, the judgment w-e 
form involves the simple ides of equality. To say, 

* Philosophy of Rhetoric, Book I. Chap. vii. Sect. iv. 



PRICE. 199 

therefore, that reason, or the understanding, is a source of 
new ideas, is not so exceptionable a mode of speaking as 
has sometimes been supposed. According to Locke, sense 
furnishes our ideas, and reason perceives their agreements 
or disagreements ; whereas, in point of fact, these agree- 
ments or disagreements are in many instances simple ideas, 
of which no analysis can be given, and of whicli the origin 
must therefore be referred to reason, according to Locke's 
own doctrine. 

In speaking of the hypothesis of a moral sense., I for- 
merly observed that the expression was sanctioned by the 
example of the ancients. The same authority may be 
appealed to in justification of the language used by Cud- 
w^orth and Price, whose ideas on the subject seem indeed 
to be still more conformable to the spirit of the Greek phi- 
losophy. The leading principle of action, to i]ye(xoviit6v, 
for example, so much insisted on by Plato and others, 
was plainly considered by them as the faculty of reason ; 
TO (fjvufi dsanoTty.ov jovts(Jti, to Io/iotikov, says Alcinous, De 
Doctrina Platonis* In Plato's Theoitetiis, too, Socrates 
observes, " that it cannot be any of the powers of sense 
that compares the perceptions of all the senses, and ap- 
prehends the general affections of things, and particularly 
identity, number, similitude, dissimilitude, equality, in- 
equality, to which he adds y.alhv mn alaxoov, virtue and 
vice ; asserting that this power is reason, or the soul act- 
ing by itself separately from matter, and independently of 
any corporeal impressions and passions ; and that, conse- 
quently, in opposition to Protagoras, knowledge is not to 
be sought for in sense, but in this superior part of the 
soul. It seems to me, that, for the perception of these 
things, a different organ or faculty is not appointed, but 
that the soul itself, and in virtue of its own power, ob- 
serves these general affections of all things. So far we 
have advanced as to find that knowledge is by no means 
to be sought in sense, but in the power of the soul which 
it employs, when within itself it contem.plates and searches 
out truth." f 

* Cap. XXVIII. " Sovereignty belongs by nature to the reasoning 
faculty." 

t Plato could hardly have expressed himself vs^ith greater precision, 



200 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

VIIT. The Theory which xoe adopt must maintain the 
Reality and Immutability of Moral Distinctions.] The 
opinion we form, however, on this point, is of little mo- 
bad he been arguing against Hiitcbeson's doctrine of a moral sense. 
See on tbis subject Cudworth's Immutable Morality, Book III., and 
Price's Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, 
Chap. I. Sect. ii. 

[For the argument in the text, it is only necessary to mark the points 
of difference which distinguish the truths of tlie jowreor intuitive reason 
from those of the discursive reason, or reasoning. 

1. The firmer are simple and elementary judgments. They consti- 
tute a portion of what may be called the data of intelligence, resem- 
bling, in this respect, the data of sensation and consciousness. They 
result immediately from a law of our cognitive faculties, from our original 
constitution as rational beings, and therefore may be regarded, in this 
sense, as primitive or innate. 

2. They are also recognized, assumed, or assented to, as soon as we 
have occasion to apply them, or as soon as the propositions containing 
them are understood. They are not derived truths, either by induction 
or deduction ; they do not depend on testimony, or memory, or expe- 
rience of any kind. All that experience does for them is to bring about 
the occasions and the measure of development on condition of which 
they spring up in the mind itself They neither require nor admit of 
proof: reason asserts them as being self-evident ; and, as such, they are 
acted on and assented to, in proportion as reason is unfolded, by all 
men. In this sense, therefore, they may be pronounced vniversal. 

3. Again, reason not onh' affirms that these primitive and universal 
judgments are true, but, taking for granted the veracity of our cognitive 
faculties, that they cannot not be true. They relate to realities which 
cannot be made the objects of sense or consciousness, and consequently 
we cannot imagine what they are ; nevertheless, the objects of sense 
and consciousness, as apprehended by the reason, necessarily presuppose 
these realities. These objects do not contain them, but reason sees that 
they presuppose them. In words we may deny that qualities presuppose 
a substance or substratum, in which they inhere, or that bod}' presup- 
poses space, which it measures and fills; but we are so far from being 
able actually to believe in the negative of these propositions, that we 
cannot bring ourselves by any effort to conceive of it as being possible. 
Hence, we conclude that the truths of the pure or intuitive reason are 
not only primitive and universal, but necessary. 

Now the Rational School of moralists, represented by such writers as 
Cudworth and Price, maintain that morality has its foundation in truths 
of this description, and not, as is held by the Sentimental School, rep- 
resented by such writers as Hutcheson and Hume, in facts of sensibility, 
or in purely instinctive phenomena. 

For more recent authorities on this subject, see Cousin, Sur le Fon- 
de.ment des Idies Msolues du Vrai, du Beat/, et du Bien. Bouillier, 
Tkeorie de la Raison Impersonjirlle. Coleridge's ^ic?s to Reflection; par- 
ticularly his comment on the eighth of the Jiphorisms on that which is 
indeed. Spiritual Religion. VVhevveU's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 
Book I. 

Jouft'roy has given. Introduction to Ethics, Lectures XXI. - XXIII., an 
admirable criticism on Price, and other rational moralists of the same 
school, including Cudworth and Stewart.] 



IMMUTABILITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. 201 

ment, provided it be granted that the words right and 
lorong express qualities of actions. When I say of an 
act of justice that it is right, do I mean merely that the 
act excites pleasure in my mind, as a particular color 
pleases my eye, in consequence of a relation which it 
bears to my organ ? or do I mean to assert a truth which 
is as independent of my constitution as the equality of the 
three angles of a triangle to two right angles ? Skepticism 
may be indulged in both cases, about mathematical and 
about moral truth, but in neither case does it admit of a 
refutation by argument. 

For my own part, I can as easily conceive a rational 
being so formed as to believe the three angles of a triangle 
to be equal to one right angle, as to believe' that, if he had 
it in his power, it would be right to sacrifice the happiness 
of other men to the gratification of his own animal appe- 
tites, or that there would be no injustice in depriving an 
industrious old man of the fruits of his own laborious ac- 
quisitions. The exercise of our reason in the two cases 
is very different ; but in both cases we have a perception 
of truth, and are impressed with an irresistible conviction 
that the truth is immutable, and independent of the will of 
any being whatever. 

In the passage which was formerly quoted from Dr. 
Cudworth, mention is made of various authors, particularly 
among the theologians of the scholastic ages, who were 
led to call in question the immutability of moral distinc- 
tions by the pious design of magnifying the perfections of 
the Deity. I am sorry to observe that these notions are 
not as yet completely exploded ; and that, in our own age, 
they have misled the speculations of some writers of con- 
siderable genius, particularly those of Dr. Johnson, Soame 
Jenyns, and Dr. Paley. Such authors certainly do not 
recollect, that what they add to the Divine power and 
majesty they take away from his moral attributes ; for if 
moral distinctions be not immutable and eternal, it is 
absurd to speak of the goodness or of the justice of God. 
" Whoever thinks," says Shaftesbury, " that there is a 
God, and pretends formally to believe that he is jtist and 
good, must suppose that there is independently such a 
thing as justice and injustice, truth and falsehood, right 



202 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

and tvrong, according to which eternal and immutable 
standards he pronounces that God is just, righteous, and 
true. If the mere will, decree, or law of God be said 
absolutely to constitute right and wrong, then are these 
latter words of no signification at all [when applied to 
him]." * 

Injustice, indeed, to one of the writers above mention- 
ed. Dr. Paley, it is proper for me to observe, that the 
objection just now stated has not escaped his attention, 
and that he has even attempted an answer to it ; but it is 
an answer in which he admits the justness of the inference 
which we have drawn from his premises : or, in other 
words, in which he admits, that, to speak of the moral 
attributes of God, or to say that he is just, righteous, and 
true, is to employ words which are altogether nugatory and 
unmeaning. That I may not be accused of misinterpret- 
ing the doctrine of this ingenious writer, who on many 
accounts deserves the popularity he enjoys, I shall quote 
his own statement of his opinion on this subject. " Since 
moral obligation depends, as we have seen, upon the will 
of God, right, which is correlative to it, must depend 
upon the same. Right therefore signifies consistency icith 
the will of God. 

" But if the Divine will determine the distinction of 
right and wrong, what else is it but an identical proposi- 
tion to say of God that he acts right ? or how is it possi- 
ble even to conceive that he should act wrong ? Yet these 
assertions are intelligible and significant. The case is this : 
by virtue of the two principles, that God wills the happi- 
ness of his creatures, and that the will of God is the meas- 
ure of right and wrong, we arrive at certain conclusions, 
which conclusions become rules ; and we soon learn to 
pronounce actions right and wrong according as they 
agree or disagree with our rules, without looking further ; 
and when the habit is once established of stopping at the 
rules, we can go back and compare with these rules even 
the Divine conduct itself ; and yet it may be true, (only 
not observed by us at the time,) that the rules themselves 
are deduced from the Divine will." f 

* Inquiry concerning Virtue, Part III. Sect. ii. 

t Moral Phiiosophy, Book II. Chap. ix. When Dr. Paley first ap- 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 203 

To this very extraordinary passage, (some parts of which 
I confess I do not completely comprehend, but which 
plainly gives up the moral attributes of God as a form of 
words that convey no meaning,) I have no particular an- 
swer to offer. That it was written with the purest inten- 
tions, and from the complete conviction of the author's 
own mind, I am perfectly satisfied from the general scope 
of his book, as well as from the strong testimony of the 
first names in England in favor of the worth of the writer ; 
but it leads to consequences of the most alarming nature, 
coinciding in every material respect vi^ith the systems of 
those scholastic theologians whom Dr. Cudworth classes 
with the Epicurean philosophers of old, and whose errors 
that great and excellent writer has refuted with so splendid 
a display of learning, and such irresistible force of argu- 
ment.* 

Section II. 

OF THE AGREEABLE AND DISAGREEABLE EMOTIONS ARISING 
FROM THE PERCEPTION OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG 
IN CONDUCT. 

I. Moral Beauty and Deformity.'] It is impossible 
to behold a good action without being conscious of a be- 
nevolent affection, either of love or of respect, towards 
the agent ; and consequently, as all our benevolent affec- 
tions include an agreeable feeling, every good action must 

peared as an author, his reading on ethical subjects seems to me to have 
been extremely limited, and to have extended little farther than to the 
works of that ingenious and well-meaning, but fanciful and superficial 
writer, Abraham Tucker, author, under the fictitious name of Edward 
Search, Esq., of The Light of Kature Pursued. See the preface to the 
Moral Philosophy. The political part of Paley's book, although by no 
means unexceptionable, displays talents so far superior to the moral, that 
one would scarcely suppose them to have proceeded from the same pen. 
[John Law, to whose father the book is dedicated, and who was him- 
self a friend and fellow-tutor of Paley and afterwards Bishop of Elphin 
in Ireland, is said to have assisted in the composition of the work, and 
to have written the whole of the admirable chapter. Of Reverencing the 
Deity. Dyer's Privileges of Cambridge., Vol. II. p. 59.] 

* Even Wardlaw, though he rejects Butler's doctrine respecting a 
natural conscience in man, strenuously opposes those who make moral 
distinctions depend on the loill of God. Christian Elides, Lecture VI.; 
See aXsoV^hs.viiB Mental Philoso-phyjYol.W. § 2Q2 et seq. — Ed. 



204 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

be a source of pleasure to the spectator. Besides this, 
other agreeable feelings, of order, of utility, of peace of 
mind, &c., come, in process of time, to be associated 
with the general idea of virtuous conduct. 

Those qualities in good actions which excite agreeable 
feelings in the mind of the spectator form what some 
moralists have called the beauty of virtue. 

All this may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to explain 
what is meant by the deformity of vice. 

This view of the moral faculty, which represents it as a 
species o^ taste, by which we are determined to the love 
of moral excellence, occurs very frequently in the works 
of the ancients. But I shall confine myself at present to 
one short quotation from Cicero. '' Nee vero ilia parva 
vis naturae est rationisque, quod unum hoc animal sentit 
quid sit ordo ; quid sit, quod decea't ; in factis dictisque 
qui modus. Itaque eorum ipsorum, quce adspectu sen- 
tiuntur, nullum aliud animal pulchritudinem, venustatem, 
convenientiam partium sentit ; quam similitudinem natura 
ratioque ab ociilis ad animum transferens, multo etiam 
magis pulchritudinem, constantiam, ordinem in consiliis 
factisque conservandum putat ; cavetque ne quid indecore, 
efFeminateve facia t ; turn in omnibus et opinionibus et 
factis, ne quid libidinose aut faciat aut cogitet : quibus ex 
rebus conflatur et efficitur id, quod quajrimus Jionestum ; 
quod, etiam si nobilitatum non.sit, tamen honestum sit; 
quodque vere dicimus, etiam, si a nullo laudetur, natura 
esse laudabile. Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fill, et 
tamquam faciem honesti vides ; quae si oculis cerneretur, 
mirabiles amores, ut ait Plato, excitaret sapientiag." * 

* De Off.,h'ib. I. 4,5. "Nor is that power of nature and reason small 
which has given to man alone a perception of order and propriety, and 
a standard by which to regulate his speech and his actions. Of the ob- 
jects of sense, no other animal is qualified to perceive the beauty, the 
grace, and the symmetry of parts. But reason enables man to make the 
same application of this perception of external nature to the mind, and 
to observe tiiat a much higher beauty, harmony, and order ought to be 
preserved in designs and in actions, and that unbecoming opinions and 
dissolute conduct should be wholly avoided. From this constitution of 
nature arises that virtue we seek for, which, however little distinguish- 
ed by the world, is still virtue, and which, though none approved, we 
justly affirm to be of itself praiseworthy. Such, my son Marcus, is the 
form and character of virtue, which, according to the opinion of Plato, 
' if it could he distinguished by the eye, would excite a wonderful love of 
wisdom.' " • 



THE BEAUTS" OF VIRTUE. 205 

The same moralists who have applied to virtue and to 
vice the epithets I have now been endeavouring to define 
have remarked, that, as in natural objects, so also in the 
conduct and characters of mankind, there are two different 
species of beauty ; — the one what is properly called 
beauty in the more limited and precise acceptation of the 
term ; the other what is properly called grandeur or subr 
limity. The former naturally excites love toward the 
agent, the latter renders him an object of our admiration. 
To the former class belong the qualities of gentleness, 
candor, condescension, and humanity. To the latter., 
magnanimity, fortitude, inflexible justice, self-command, 
contempt of danger and contempt of death ; those qualities 
which, as exhibited in the character of Cato, formed in 
the judgment of Seneca a spectacle which Heaven itself 
might behold with pleasure. " Ecce spectaculum Deo 
dignum, ad quod respiciat Jupiter, suo operi intentus, vir 
fortis cum mala fortuna compositus." Illustrations of this 
kind abound in those writers who have adopted Shaftes- 
bury's scheme of morals. 

II. Distinguishable from our Perceptions of Right and 
Wrong.'] Without deciding at present on the propriety 
of the expressions moral beauty and moral deformity, it is 
of consequence for us to remark, that our perception of 
the qualities which these words are employed to denote is 
plainly distinguishable from our perception of actions as 
right or wrong. The latter involves a judgment with 
respect to certain attributes of actions, which no more de- 
pend on our perception than the primary qualities of body 
depend on the informations we receive of them by our ex- 
ternal senses, or than the distinction between mathematical 
truth and falsehood depends on the conclusions of our un- 
derstanding. The words beauty and deformity., on the 
other hand, have always a reference to the feelings of the 
spectator, — to the delight or uneasiness which particular 
actions produce on the mind. 

Nor are these perceptions distinguishable from each 
other merely in theory. The distinct operation of each 
in producing the moral sentiments of mankind is easily dis- 
cernible by the most superficial observer ; for, although 
18 



206 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

they are always in some degree combined togelher, yet 
they are not always combined in the same relative propor- 
tions. There are some men who, with Marcus in the 
play, at the bare mention of successful iniquity, are " tor- 
tured even to madness " ; while others, whose judgments 
with respect to morality are equally sound, possess that 
steady and dispassionate temper which 

"Can look on fraud, rebellion, guilt, and Ca?sar, 
In the calm light of mild philosophy." * 

The rectitude, therefore, of our moral judgments is by no 
means to be estimated by the liveliness of the impressions 
which good or bad actions produce on the mind. Indeed, 
the same circumstances whig^ contribute to the accuracy 
of the former have in some respects a tendency to weaken 
the latter. These, like all other passive impressions, are 
rendered more languid by custom ; f whereas constant 
exercise and a proper application of our intellectual powers 
in general are absolutely necessary to guard us against the 
various errors by which the power of moral judgment is 
liable to be perverted. Tlie liveliness, too, of our moral 
feelings depends much on accidental circumstances ; — on 
constitutional temper, on education, on early associations, 
and, above all, on the culture which the power of imagina- 
tion has received. 

Notwithstanding, however, the reality and importance 
of this distinction, it has been but little attended to by the 
greater part of philosophers. The ancients had it in view 
when they spoke of the honestVAii and the pulchrum, the 
TO dr/.i/.iov and the to unlov ; but the moderns seem in gen- 
eral to have overlooked it almost entirely, some of tliem 
confining their attention exclusively to the one perception, 
and some to the other. Clarke, for example, and his fol- 
lowers, neglecting the consideration of our moral feelings, 
have treated of this part of our constitution as if it con- 
sisted wholly of a power of distinguishing between right 
and wrong ; and hence their works, how satisfactory so- 
ever to the understanding, seldom engage the imagination, 

* Addison's Cato, Act. I. Scene I. 

t On further reflection, this proposition seems to me somewhat doubt- 
fiil. Perhaps it ma}' be found that our moral impressions form a singular 
exception to this general law of our constitution. 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 207 

or interest the heart. Shaftesbury, on the other hand, and 
his numerous admirers, by dweUing exclusively on our 
perception of moral beauty and deformity, have been led 
into enthusiasm and declamation, and have furnished licen- 
tious moralists with a pretence for questioning the immu- 
tability of moral distinctions. Even Dr. Hutcheson, one 
of the ablest and most judicious of his disciples, has con- 
tented himself with this partial view of our moral constitu- 
tion. He everywhere describes virtue and vice by the 
effects accompanying the perception of them, and makes 
no distinction between the rectitude of an action as ap- 
proved by our reason, and its gratefulness to the taste of 
the observer, or its aptitude to excite his moral emotions. 

III. Errors resulting from an exclusive Regard to the 
Moral Emotions.'] Another erroneous conclusion of a 
very dangerous tendency has been suggested by the doc- 
trines of Lord Shaftesbury's school. Accustomed to de- 
fine virtue and vice by their agreeable or disagreeable 
effects on the mind of the spectator, his followers have 
been led to extend the meaning of these words far beyond 
their proper signification ; and, as virtue forms always an 
agreeable and vice a disagreeable object of contempla- 
tion, they have concluded that the converse of the prop- 
osition was equally true, and that every thing that was 
agreeable or disagreeable in human character or conduct 
might be properly expressed by the words vii^tue and vice. 
Accordingly, Hume, proceeding on the same general 
principles with Hutcheson, has been led to adopt this very 
conclusion as a fundamental truth in ethics, and even to 
introduce it into the definition which he gives of virtue, — 
" virtue," according to his theory, " consisting in the pos- 
session of qualities which are useful or agreeable to our- 
selves or to others."* That this definition is erroneous 
is sufficiently evident ; for nothing can be plainer than that 
the words virtue and vice are applicable only to those 
parts of our character and conduct which depend on our 
own voluntary exertions. Sensibility, gayety, liveliness, 
good-humor, natural affection, are a source of pleasure to 

* Hume's Principles of Morals, Sect. IX. Part I. 



208 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

every beholder, and wherever they are to be found en- 
title the possessor to the appellation of amiable ; but in 
so far as they result from original constitution, or from 
external circumstances over which he had no control, 
they certainly do not render him an object of moral ap- 
probation. 

A further inaccuracy in the philosophy of Shaftesbury 
and Hutcheson has arisen from the same source, the appli- 
cation of the epithets virtuous and vicious to the affections 
of the mind. In order to think with precision on this 
subject, it is necessary for us always to remember that the 
object of moral approbation is not affections, but actions. 
The efforts, indeed, we make to cultivate our amiable 
affections are in a high degree meritorious, because the 
object of the effort is to add to the happiness of those 
with whom we associate, and because the effort depends 
upon ourselves ; but the merit in such cases does not 
consist in the affection, but in the efforts by which it has 
been cultivated. 

The result of the remarks now made on the systems of 
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson amounts to this, that they do 
not draw the line sufficiently between constitutional good 
qualities, and those which are voluntary and meritorious. 
In common discourse, indeed, we frequently apply the 
word virtue to both, but it is the last alone which in strict 
propriety deserves the name : and, in our own case, it is of 
great consequence for us to attend to the distinction. In 
the case of others, as it is impossible for us to draw the 
line, and as the tendency of our nature is rather to think 
too unfavorably of our neighbours, it may be the safest 
rule to consider every action as meritorious which can be 
supposed, by any reasonable or plausible interpretation, to 
have probably, or even possibh/, proceeded from a virtuous 
motive. The author of the J\Ian of Feeling, among the 
many beautiful features in the character of Harley, has 
not failed to remark this candid and amiable disposition. 
" Her benevolence," (he is speaking of his heroine, JMiss 
Walton,) "was unbounded. Indeed, the natural tender- 
ness of her heart might have been argued by the frigidity 
of a casuist as detracting from her virtue in this respect, 
for her humanity was a feeling, not a principle. But 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 209 

minds like Harley's are not very apt to make this distinc- 
tion, and generally give our virtue credit for all that be- 
nevolence which is instinctive in our nature." 

In offering these criticisms on the writings of Shaftes- 
bury and Hutcheson, I would not be understood to detract 
from their merits. I am fully sensible of the infinite ser- 
vice they have rendered to this branch of science, by 
rescuing it from the hands of monks and fcasuists, and re- 
storing it to its ancient honors. The enthusiasm with 
which both of them have painted the charms of moral ex- 
cellence, while it delights the imagination and exalts the 
taste, is admirably calculated to lay hold of the generous 
affections of youth, and to kindle in their breasts the glow 
of virtue. The Rhapsody of Shaftesbury in particular, 
whatever the blemishes in point of taste (and they are 
many) which a critical reader may find in it, will remain 
for ever a monument to the powers of his genius, as well 
as to the purity and elevation of his mind. It is in general 
free from the reprehensible sentiments which have given 
so much just offence in some of his earlier publications, 
and w^ell merits the encomium which Thomson has be- 
stowed on it in his enumeration of the illustrious names 
which have adorned the literary history of England. 

"The generous Ashley thine! the friend of man, 
Who scanned his nature with a brother's eye, 
His weakness prompt to shade, — to raise his aim. 
To touch the finer movements of the mind. 
And with the moral beauty charm the heart." 

Still, however, I must again repeat, that it is chiefly on 
account of their practical tendency that I would recom- 
mend these two eminent writers ; and that, in order to 
guard ourselves against the cavils of skeptics, it is neces- 
sary to look out for a more solid foundation to morality 
than their philosophy supplies. 

IV. Whether all Beauty depends on its being Signifi- 
cant or Suggestive of Jllental Qualities.'] I must not 
leave this subject of moral beauty, without taking some 
notice of a speculation with respect to it, which formed 
one of the favorite doctrines of the Socratic school, and 
which Shaftesbury and some other modern writers have 
18* 



210 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

attempted to revive. In the observations 1 have hitherto 
made, I have proceeded on the supposition, that the 
words beauty and sublimity are apphed to actions and 
characters metaphorically, or from an analogy between the 
emotions which certain moral qualities and certain material 
objects produce in the mind. This, which is certainly 
the more obvious and the more common doctrine, seems 
to have been adopted by Cicero in the passage which I 
have already quoted. And as the opinion we form con- 
cerning it has no connection with any of the inquiries in 
which we have just been engaged, I was unwilling to dis- 
tract the attention by mentioning any other. The philoso- 
phers now referred to have adopted a conclusion directly 
opposite to this, and have maintained that the words beauty 
and sublimity express, in their literal signification, qualities 
of mind ; and that material objects atfect us in this way 
only by means of the moral ideas they suggest. For my 
own part, I am not prepared to say any thing very decided 
either on the one side or on the other ; but I must confess 
that my present views rather incline to the last of these 
doctrines. The following considerations, in particular, 
seem to me to have great weight. 

It is only in the case of our own minds that w'e have any 
direct or immediate knowledge either of intellectual or 
moral qualities. ' In the case of other men we know them 
only by their external effects ; that is, either by the natu- 
ral signs of intelligence and sentiment which we read in 
the countenance, or by the information we derive from 
artificial language, or by the inferences we draw from their 
conduct and behaviour. To all these external effects, but 
more particularly to the features of the countenance, we 
apply the epithet of beautiful. But I believe it will be 
found that this epithet is applicable to them only, or at 
least chiefly, in so far as they are significant. Into this 
question, however, when proposed in general terms, I 
shall not enter ; nor shall I take upon me positively to say 
that there is no beauty in certain combinations of com- 
plexion and features, abstracted from any particular mean- 
ing. It is sufficient for my purpose, if it be granted that 
the beauty of the human face consists chiefly in its expres- 
sion ; and about this it is impossible there can be any con- 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 211 

troversy. The human face, therefore, it would appear, 
is beautiful chiefly as it presents to our conceptions the 
qualities of viind. 

The same observation is applicable very nearly to the 
material universe in general. The pleasurable emotion 
it excites in the mind of the peasant or mechanic is ex- 
tremely trifling ; but to those whose understandings have 
received such a degree of cultivation as to be enabled to 
read in it the characters of power, wisdom, and goodness, 
how sublime, how beautiful, does it appear ! Even in the 
case of particular objects, it may be doubted whether the 
beauty of order and uniformity does not arise partly from 
some obscure suggestion of design and intelligence. I say 
partly, because, independent of any such considerations, 
order and uniformity please from the aids they afford to 
our powers of comprehension and memory. If these ob- 
servations are well founded, it will follow that it is mind 
alone that possesses original and underived beauty ; and 
that what we call the beauty of the material world is chiefly, 
if not wholly, reflected from intellectual and moral quali- 
ties ; as the light we admire on the disk of the moon and 
planets is, when traced to its original source, the light of 
the sun. The exclamation, therefore, of the poet in the 
following lines would appear, notwithstanding the enthu- 
siasm which animates it, to be strictly and philosophically 
just. 

"Mind, mind alone, — bear witness earth and Keavenl — 
The living fountains in itself contains 
Of beauteous and sublime. Here hand in hand 
Sit paramount the graces. Here enthroned, 
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, 
Invites the soul to never-fading joy."* 

If with these doctrines of the Socratic school we com- 
bine the fine and philosophical speculations of Mr. Alison 
with respect to the effect of association, they will be found 
to add greatly to the evidence of the general conclusion. 
Perhaps it may appear to some that the former specula- 
tions are resolvable into the latter. This, however, is not 
the case ; for the former relate to natural signs ; the 
latter to arbitrary connections established in the mind by 

* Akenside, Pleasures of Imagination, Book I 



212 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

habit. In the mind of the philosopher (for example) who 
traces in the universe the signatures of the Divine perfec- 
tions, the beauties he contemplates cannot, with propriety, 
be referred to association, any more than the charms of a 
beautiful face the first time it is seen. But in a mind 
conversant with poetry, to which every object in nature 
recalls a thousand agreeable images, a great part of the 
pleasing effect must be referred to this source. Even 
here, however, association operates in a manner which 
illustrates and confirms the general theory, inasmuch as it 
produces its effect by making objects more significant than 
they were before ; or, in other words, by rendering them 
the occasions of our conceiving intellectual and moral 
beauties, of which they are not naturally expressive.* 

Whatever opinion we adopt on this speculative question, 
there can be no dispute about the fact, that good actions 
and virtuous characters form the most delightful of all ob- 
jects to the human mind ; and that there are no charms in 
the external universe so powerful as those wdiich recom- 
mend to us the cultivation of the qualities that constitute 
the perfection and the happiness of our nature. 

"Look, then, abroad through nature, to the range 
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense, 
And speak, O man ! does this capacious scene, 
With half that kindling majesty dilate 
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose. 
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate, 
Amid the crowd of patriots ; and, his arm 
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove 
When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud 
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel. 
And bade the father of his country, Hail ! 
For, lo ! the tyrant prostrate in the dust, 
And Rome again is free ? Is aught so fair. 
In all the dewy landscapes of tlie spring. 
In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn, 
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair 
As virtuous friendship ? as the candid blush 
Of him who strives with fortune to be just? 
The graceful tear that streams for others' woes P 
Or the mild majesty of private life. 
Where peace with ever-blooming olive crowns 

* See the profound and eloquent reflections with which Mr. Alison 
concludes the first chapter of his admirable Essays on the JVature and 
Principles of Taste. 



THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. 213 

The gate, where honor's liberal hands effuse 
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings 
Of innocence and love protect the scene?"* 

Y. Use to he made of this Connection between J^aiural 
and Moral Beauty.'] It is no less evident that these two 
kinds of taste^ (that for natural and that for moral beauty,) 
if not ultimately resolvable into the same principles, are at 
least very nearly allied, or very closely connected ; inso- 
much that every author who has treated professedly of 
the one has been insensibly led to illustrate his subject by 
frequent references to the other. Hence in poetry the 
natural and pleasing union of those pictures which recall 
to us the charms of external nature, and that moral paint- 
ing which affects and delights the heart. The intentions 
of nature, in thus associating the ideas of the beautiful 
and the good., cannot be mistaken. Much, I am persuad- 
ed, might be done by a judicious system of education, in 
following out the plan which Nature has herself, in this in- 
stance, so manifestly traced ; as we find, indeed, was done 
to a very great degree in those ancient schools, who con- 
sidered it as the most important of all objects to establish 
such a union between philosophy and the fine arts as might 
add to the natural beauty of Virtue every attraction which 
the imagination could give her. 

It would be improper to bring this subject to a conclu- 
sion without mentioning the attempt which Mr. Hume has 
made to show that what we call the beauty of virtue is the 
beauty of utility. For a particular examination and ref- 
utation of this opinion, I refer the reader to Mr. Smith's 
Theory of JWoral Sentiments. Although, however, Mr. 
Smith differs from Mr. Hume in thinking that virtue 
pleases because we consider it to be useful, he agrees with 
him that all those qualities which w^e consider as amiable 
or agreeable are really useful either to ourselves or to 
others. In this respect their conclusions coincide with 
the doctrines of the Socratic school, and afford additional 
evidence of the beneficent solicitude with which Nature 
allures us to the practice of our duty. " Do you imagine," 
says Socrates to Aristippus, " that what is good is not 

* Akenside, Book I. 



214 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

beautiful ? Have you not observed that these appear- 
ances always coincide ? Virtue, for instance, in the same 
respect as to which we call it good, is ever acknowledged 
to be beautiful also. In the character we always join 
the two denominations together.* The beauty of human 
bodies corresponds, in like manner, with that economy of 
parts which constitutes them good ; and in every circum- 
stance of life the same object is constantly accounted both 
beautiful and good, inasmuch as it answers the purposes 
for which it is designed."! 



Section III. 

OF THE PERCEPTION OF MERIT AND DEMERIT. 

I. Origin and Use of Ideas of Merit and Demerit.^ 
The various actions performed by other men not only 
excite in our minds a benevolent affection towards them, 
or a disposition to promote their happiness, but impress us 
with a sense of the merit of the agents. We perceive 
them to be the proper objects of love and esteem, and 
that it is morally right that they should receive their re- 
ward. We feel ourselves called on to make their worth 
known to the world, in order to procure them the favor 
and respect they deserve ; and if we allow it to remain 
secret we are conscious of injustice in suppressing the 
natural language of the heart. 

On the other hand, when we are witnesses of an act of 
selfishness, of cruelty, or of oppression, tohether tee our- 
selves are sufferers or not, we are not only inspired with 
aversion and hatred towards the delinquent, but find it dif- 
ficult to restrain our indignation from breaking loose against 
him. By this natural impulse of the mind a check is im- 
posed on the bad passions of individuals, and a provision 
is made even before the establishment of positive laws for 
the good order of society. 

In our own case, how delightful are our feelings when 
we are conscious of doing well ? By a species of instinct 

* By the words KoXoKayados and KoXoKayadla. 

t Xenoph. Memorab., Lib. III. c. 8. The transh\tion is Akenside's. 



MERIT AND DEMERIT. 215 

we know ourselves to be the object of the esteem and at- 
tachment of our fellow-creatures, and we feel, with the 
evidence of a perception, that Heaven smiles on our 
labors, and that we enjoy the approbation and favor of 
the Invisible Witness of our conduct. Hence it is that we 
not only have a sense of merit, but an anticipation of re- 
tvard, and look forward to the future with increased con- 
fidence and hope. Nor is this confidence weakened, pro- 
vided we retain our integrity unshaken by the strokes of 
adverse fortune, but, on the contrary, we feel it increase 
in proportion to the efforts that we have occasion to make ; 
and even in the moment of danger and of death it exhorts 
us to persevere, and assures us that all will be finally well 
with us. Hence the additional heroism of the brave when 
they draw the sword in a worthy cause. They feel them- 
selves animated with tenfold strength, relying on the suc- 
cor of an invisible arm, and seeming to trust, while em- 
ployed in promoting the beneficent purposes of Provi- 
dence, " that guardian angels combat on their side." Al- 
though, however, this sense of merit which accompanies 
the performance of good actions convinces the philosopher 
of the connection which the Deity has established between 
virtue and happiness, he does not proceed on the supposi- 
tion, that on particular occasions miraculous interpositions 
are to be made in his favor. That virtue is the most 
direct road to happiness he sees to be the case even in 
this world ; but he knows that the Deity governs by gen- 
eral laws ; and when he feels himself disappointed in the 
attainment of his wishes, he acquiesces in his lot, and 
looks forward with hope to futurity. It is an error of the 
vulgar to expect that good or bad fortune is, even in this 
world, to be the inmiediate consequence of good or bad ac- 
tions, — a prejudice of which we may trace the influence 
in all ages and nations, but more particularly in times of 
superstition and ignorance. From this error arose the 
practices of judicial combat, and of trial by ordeal, both of 
which formerly prevailed in this part of the world, and of 
which the latter (as appears from the Asiatic Researches) 
kept its ground in Hindostan as late as 1784,* and prob- 

" " In the code of the Gentoo laws mention is made of the trial bv 



216 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

ably keeps its ground at this day. Absurd as these ideas 
are, they show strongly how natural to the human mind 
are the sentiments now under consideration ; for this 
belief of the connection between virtue and good forlune 
has plainly taken its rise from the natural connection be- 
tween the ideas of virtue and merit, a connection which, 
we may rest assured, is agreeable to the general laws by 
which the universe is governed, but which the slightest re- 
flection may satisfy us cannot always correspond with the 
order of events in such a world as we inhabit at present. 

I am not certain but we may trace something of the 
same kind in the sports of children, who have all a notion 
that good fortune in their games of chance depends upon 
perfect fairness towards their adversaries, and that those 
are certain to lose who attempt to take secretly any undue 
advantage. 

" Pueri ludentes, Rex eris, aiunt, 
Si recte facies." * 

Indeed, the moral perceptions (although frequently misap- 
plied in consequence of the weakness of reason and the 
want of experience) may be as distinctly traced in the 
mind at that time of life as ever afterwards, when surely it 
cannot be supposed that they are the result, as some au- 
thors have held, of a conviction, founded on actual obser- 
vation, of the utility of virtue. f 

ordeal, which was one of the first laws instituted by Jioses among the 
Jews. See JYumLers, Chap. V. Fire or water were usually employed ; 
but in India the mode varies, and is often determined by the ciioice of 
the parties. I remember a letter from a man of rank, wJio ^^ as accused 
of corresponding in time of war with the enemy, in which he says, 'Let 
my accuser be produced ; let me see him face to face ; let the most ven- 
omous snakes be put into a pot; let us put our hands into it together ; 
let it be covered for a certain time; and he who remaineth unhurt shall 
be innocent.' 

" This trial is always accompanied with the solemnities of a religious 
ceremony." — Crawford's Sketches of the Hindoos, p. 298. 

* Horat. Epist. Lib. I. Ep. 1. 59. 

'• Let children sing 
Amid their sports, ' Do right and be a king.' " 

t Cousin expresses clearly and forcibly his view of the connection 
between merit and demerit and the rewards and pimishmeiits rightfully 
inflicted by society. Histoire de la Philosophie du XFIIf^- Siicle, Vingti- 
eme Lei^on. We copy a single paragraph from Professor Henry's 
excellent translation, £/c?new«s of Psychology^ Chap. V. : — "Without 



MERIT AND DEMERIT. 217 

11. Holo to guard against Self-deceit.'] I shall con- 
clude this subject with again recalling to the attention of 
the reader a very remarkable fact formerly stated, that our 

any doubt, it is useful to society to inflict contempt upon the violator of 
moral order; without doubt, it is useful to society to punish efiectually 
the individual who attacks the foundations of social order. This con- 
sideration of utility is real ; it is weighty ; but I say that it is not the 
first, that it is only accessory, and that the immediate basis of all penalty 
is the idea of the essential merit and demerit of actions, — the general 
idea of order, which imperiously demands that the merit and demerit of 
actions, which is a law of reason and of order, should be realized in a 
society that pretends to be rational and well ordered. On tliis ground, 
and on this ground alone, of realizing this laio of reason and of order, 
the two powers of society, opinion and government, appear faithful to 
their primary law. Then comes up utility, — the immediate utility of 
repressing evil, and the indirect utility of preventing it, by example, 
that is, by fear. But this consideration has need of a basis superior to 
itself, in order to render it legitimate. Suppose, in fact, tiiat there is 
nothing good or evil in itself, and consequently neither essential merit 
nor demerit, and consequently, again, no absolute right of blaming or 
punishing ; by what right, then, I ask, do you blame or disgrace a man, 
or make him ascend the scaffold, or put him in irons for ]ife,/o?' the ad- 
vantage of others ; when the action of the man is neither good nor bad 
in itself, and merits in itself neither blame nor punishment .-■ Suppose 
that it is not absolutely right, just in itself, to blame this man or to 
punish him, and the legitimacy and propriety of infamy and of glory, 
and of every species of reward and punishment, are at an end. Still 
further, I maintain if punishment has no other ground than utility, then 
even its utility is destroyed ; for in order that a punishment ma}' be use- 
ful, it is requisite, — 1st, that he upon whom it is inflicted, endowed as 
he is with the principle of merit and demerit, should regard himself as 
justly punished, and should accept his punishment with a suitable dis- 
position j 2d, that the spectators, equally endowed with the principle of 
merit and deijierit, should regard the culprit as justly punished accord- 
ing to the measure of his crime, and should apply to themselves by an- 
ticipation the same justice in case of crime, and should be kept in har- 
mony v5th the social order by the view of its legitimate penalties. 
Hence Arises the utility of examples of punishment, whether moral or 
physical. But take away its foundation in justice, and you destroy the 
utility of punishment ; you excite indignation and abhorrence, instead 
of awakening penitence in the victim, or teaching a salutary lesson to 
the public. You arra)^ courage, sympathy, every thing noble and elevat- 
ed in human nature, on the side of the victim. You excite all energetic 
spirits against society and its artificial laws. Thus the utility of punish- 
ment is itself grounded in its justice, instead of justice being- grounded 
in its utility. Punishment is the sanction of the law, and not its founda- 
tion. Moral order has its foundation not in punishment, but punish- 
ment has its foundation in moral order. The idea of right and wrong 
is grounded only on itself, on reason which reveals it. It is the condi- 
tion of the idea of merit and demerit whicli is the condition of the idea 
of reward and punishment; and this latter is to the two former, but 
especially to the idea of right and wrong, in the relation of the conse- 
quence to the principle." — Ed. 

19 



218 MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS. 

moral emotions seem to be stronger with respect to the 
conduct of others than our own. A man who can be 
guihy, apparently without remorse, of the most flagrant 
injustice, will yet feel the warmest indignation against a 
similar act of injustice in another ; and the best of men 
know it to be in many cases a useful rule, before they de- 
termine on any particular conduct, to consider how they 
would judge of the conduct of another in the same cir- 
cumstances. " Do to others as ye would that they should 
do unto you." This is owing to the influence of self- 
partiality and self-deceit. Mr. Smith has been so much 
struck with the difference of our moral judgments in our 
own case and in that of another, that he has concluded 
conscience to be only an application to ourselves of those 
rules which we have collected from observing our feelings 
in cases in which we are not personally concerned. I 
shall afterwards state some objections to which this opin- 
ion is liable. 

Were it not for the influence of self-deceit, it could 
hardly happen that a man should habitually act in direct 
opposition to his moral principles. We know, however, 
that this is but too frequently the case. The most perfect 
conviction of the obligation of virtue, and the strongest 
moral feelings, will be of little use in regulating our con- 
duct, unless we are at pains to attend constantly to the 
state of our own character, and to scrutinize with the 
most suspicious care the motives of our actions. Hence 
the importance of the precept so much recommended by 
the moralists of all ages, — " Know thyself." 

These observations may convince us still more of the 
truth of what I have elsewhere remarked with respect to 
sentimental readings and of its total insufficiency for form- 
ing a virtuous character without many other precautions.* 
Where its effects are corrected by habits of business, and 
every instance of conduct is brought home by the reader 
to himself, it may be a source of solid improvement ; for 
although strong moral feelings do by no means alone con- 
stitute virtue, yet they add to the satisfaction we derive 
from the discharge of our duty, and they increase the in- 
terest we take in the prosperity of virtue in the world. 

* Philosophy of the Human Mind, P. I. Chap. viii. Sect. v. 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 219 

CHAPTER IV. 

OF MORAL OBLIGATION. 

I. Ground of Obligation.'] According to some sys- 
tems, moral obligation is founded entirely on our belief 
that virtue is enjoined by the command of God. But how, 
it may be asked, does this belief impose an obligation ? 
Only one of two answers can be given. Either that 
there is a moral fitness that we should conform our will to 
that of the Author and the Governor of the universe ; or 
that a rational self-love should induce us, from motives of 
prudence, to study every means of rendering ourselves ac- 
ceptable to the Almighty Arbiter of happiness and misery. 

On the first supposition, we reason in a circle. We 
resolve our sense of moral obligation into our sense of 
religion, and the sense of religion into that of moral obli- 
gation. 

The other system, which makes virtue a mere matter of 
prudence^ although not so obviously unsatisfactory, leads 
to consequences which sufficiently invalidate every argu- 
ment in its favor. Among others, it leads us to conclude, 
1. That the disbelief of a future state absolves from all 
moral obligation, excepting in so far as we find virtue to 
be conducive to our present interest ; 2. That a being in- 
dependently and completely happy cannot have any moral 
perceptions or any moral attributes. 

But further, the notions of reward and punishment pre- 
suppose the notions of right and wrong. They are sanc- 
tions of virtue, or additional motives to the practice of 
it, but they suppose the existence of some previous obli- 
gation. 

In the last place, if moral obligation be constituted by 
a regard to our situation in another life, how shall the ex- 
istence of a future state be proved, or even rendered prob- 
able, by the light of nature .'' or how shall we discover 
what conduct is acceptable to the Deity .'' The truth is, 
that the strongest presumption for such a state is deduced 
from our natural notions of right and wrong, of merit and 



220 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

demerit, and from a comparison between these and the 
general course of human atiairs. 

It is absurd, therefore, to ask ichy we are bound to prac- 
tise virtue. The very notion of virtue implies the notion 
of obligation. Every being who is conscious of the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong carries about with him a 
law which he is bound to observe, notwithstanding he may 
be in total ignorance of a future state. " What renders 
obnoxious to punishment," as Dr. Butler has well re- 
marked, "is not the foreknowledge of it, but merely the 
violating a known obligation." Or (as Plato has express- 
ed the same idea), t6 fxh ogdov ro^og tail ^aadixog.* 

From what has been stated, it follows that the moral 
faculty, considered as an active power of the mind, differs 
essentially from all the others hitherto enumerated. The 
least violation of its authority fills us with remorse. On 
the contrary, the greater the sacrifices we make in obedi- 
ence to its suggestions, the greater are our satisfaction and 
triumph. 

II. Butler on the Supremacy of Conscience.l The 
supreme authority of conscience, although beautifully de- 
scribed by many of the ancient moralists, was not suffi- 
ciently attended to by modern writers as a fundamental 
principle in the science of ethics till the time of Dr. Butler. 
Too little stress is laid on it by Lord Shaftesbury ; and 
the omission is the chief defect in his system of morals. 
Shaftesbury's opinion, however, although he does not 
state it explicitly in his Inquiry^ seems to have been pre- 
cisely the same at bottom with that of Butler. f 

With respect to Dr. Butler, I shall take this oppor- 
tunity of remarking, that in his sermons On Human J\^a- 
ture, in the Preface to his Sermons, and in a short Dis- 
sertation on Virtue annexed to his Jlnalogy, he has, in my 
humble opinion, gone farther towards a just explanation of 
our moral constitution than any other modern philosopher. 
Without aiming at the praise of novelty or of refinement, 
he has displayed singular penetration and sagacity in avail- 
ing himself of what was sound in former systems, and in 

* Minos. " Right itself is a royal law." 

t See his Advice to an Author, Part I. Sect. ii. 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 221 

supplying their defects. He is commonly considered as 
an uninteresting and obscure writer : but, for my own part, 
I never could perceive the slightest foundation for such a 
charge ; though I am ready to grant that he pays little at- 
tention to the graces of composition, and that the con- 
struction of his sentences is frequently unskilful and un- 
harmonious. As to the charge of obscurity, which he 
himself anticipated from the nature of his subject, he has 
replied to it in the most satisfactory manner in the Preface 
already referred to. I think it proper to add, that I would 
by no means propose these sermons (which were origi- 
nally preached before the learned Society of Lincoln's 
Inn) as models for the pulpit. I consider them merely in 
the light of philosophical essays. In the same volume 
with them, however, are to be found some practical and 
characteristical discourses, which are peculiarly interesting 
and impressive, particularly the sermons On Self-deceit, 
and On the Character of Balaam ; both of which evince 
an intimate acquaintance with the springs of human action, 
rarely found in union with speculative and philosophical 
powers of so high an order. The chief merit, at the 
same time, of Butler as an ethical writer, undoubtedly lies 
in what he has written on the supreme authority of con- 
science as the governing principle of human conduct, — a 
doctrine which he has placed in the strongest and happiest 
lights, and which, before his time, had been very little 
attended to by the moderns. It is sometimes alluded to 
by Lord Shaftesbury, but so very slightly as almost to 
justify the censure which Butler bestows on this part of 
his writings. 

The scope of Butler's own reasonings may be easily 
conceived from the passage of Scripture which he has 
chosen as the groundwork of his argument : — " For when 
the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the 
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are 
a law unto themselves." * 



* " Butler's writings," says Dr. Whewell, " have been of the greatest 
value in preserving and restoring among us true views of morality; but 
there are some expressions used by him, which, if not duly limited, may 
lead his followers into mistakes. Thus, he sometimes speaks, not only 
of the authority, but of the supremacy, of conscience. Now if by calling 

19* 



222 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

III. Other ^Authorities for the same Doctrine.^ One 
of the clearest and most concise statements of this doctrine 
that I have met with is in a sermon On the Jfature and 
Obligation of Virtue, by Dr. Adams of Oxford ; the just- 
ness of whose ideas on this subject make it the more sur- 
prising that his pupil and friend, Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
should have erred so very widely from the truth. '■^Right,^^ 
says he, " implies duty in its idea. To perceive an ac- 
tion to be right is to see a reason for doing it in the action 
itself, abstracted from all other considerations whatever ; 
and tliis perception, this acknowledged rectitude in the 
action, is the very essence of obligation, that which com- 
mands the approbation and choice, and binds the con- 
science of every rational human being." — " Nothing can 
bring us under an obligation to do what appears to our 
moral judgment wrong. It may be supposed our interest 
to do this, but it cannot be supposed our duty. For, I 
ask, if some power, which we are unable to resist, should 
assume the command over us, and give us laws which are 

conscience supreme, it were meant that tlie principle so described is 
something possessing sovereign and original authority over men's other 
springs of action, this principle would necessarily be the proper ground 
of rules of action ; and all such rules must be derived ultimately from 
this principle. We should then, in order to frame rules of morality, or 
to decide any moral question, have to inquire how we can learn the de- 
cisions of conscience on such subjects. Conscience is our guide; where 
are we to learn what she says.'' Conscience, the law on the heart, is 
supreme over all laws ; how are we to read this law.-" Conscience is 
the test of right and wrong; but whose conscience .'' for conscience be- 
longs to a person. Butler's opponents have constantly said. — 'You 
tell us that conscience is the proper guide of action; but whose con- 
science ? ours, or yours .'' Our consciences point diflerent ways ; — can 
both be right .' And if not both, how are we to know which ? ' 

" These are familiar and popular arguments; but they appear to me 
to be decisive against all who ascribe to conscience a svpreniacij, in the 
proper sense of the term ; — namely, a sovereign and ultimate authority 
over all other principles of action, so that, wlien a decision is pronounced 
by conscience, there is no further reason to be rendered lor it, nor any 

higher decision to be sought But I think it is very plain that 

this was not Butler's view, — that he did not thus hold an original arid 
independent faculty of conscience, whose decisions would furin a per- 
manent body of moral rules. I think that, with iiim, conscience was 
not a body of truths, but a process by which truth is to be obtained ; — 
a faculty, if you choose, but a faculty which must be trained and ex- 
ercised in order to be used, — which may be improved, instructed, and 
enlightened, — which \\\a.y be blinded and perverted in individual men. 
Conscience is a faculty of man, as reason is a faculty ; — a power by ex- 
ercising which he may come to discern truths, not a repository of truths 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 223 

unrighteous and unjust, should we be under an obligation 
to obey him ? Should we not rather be obliged to shake 
off the yoke, and to resist such usurpation, if it were in 
our power ? However, then, we might be swayed by 
hope or fear, it is plain that we are under an obligation to 
rights which is antecedent, and in order and nature supe- 
rior to all other. Power may compel, interest may bribe, 
pleasure may persuade, but reason only can oblige. This 
is the only authority which rational beings can own, and to 
which they owe obedience." 

Dr. Clarke has expressed himself nearly to the same 
purpose. " The judgment and conscience of a man's 
own mind concerning the reasonableness and fitness of the 
thing is the truest and formallest obligation ; for whoever 
acts contrary to this sense and conscience of his own 
mind is necessarily self-condemned ; and the greatest and 
strongest of all obligations is that which a man can- 
not break through without condemning himself. So far, 
therefore, as men are conscious of what is right and 

already collected in a visible shape. Conscience, indeed, is the reason, 
employed about questions of right and wrong, and accompanied with 
the sentiments of approbation and condemnation which, by the nature 
of man, cling inextricably to his apprehension of right and wrong. This 
is the view that we have been led to take of conscience. This is, as I 
conceive, Butler's view also. That by conscience he does not mean 
any special independent faculty, distinct from the reason with its ac- 
companying moral sentiments, is, I think, evident from the whole cur- 
rent of his language. He does not confine himself to the single term 
conscience, in his account of the superior principle of our nature : on the 
contrary, he perpetually uses, for this term or with it, other terms, 
which give the same view of it which we have taken. He calls it ' re- 
flection on conscience, an approbation of some principles or actions, and 
a disapprobation of others'; — and again, ' reflex approbation or disap- 
probation ': all the phrases which he employs manifestly point at a 
principle or faculty, not by which we necessarily have, but by which 
we may get, a true knowledge of the course which we ought to take 
under any given circumstances. We are, to use another of his phrases, 
'to act suitably to our whole nature, and especially to the higher and 
better part of our nature ' ; the constitution of human nature being such 
that there is in it a higher and better part. This higher and better part 
tells us that injustice is worse than pain ; but it does not tell us what 
acts are unjust, except through the process of reflection. The notion of 
injustice is necessarily the object of disapprobation to the conscience ; 
but to unfold this notion of injustice into detail, so as to see what spe- 
cial acts are included in it, — this is the office of the reflection, that is, 
of the reason." Lectures on Systematic Morality, Lecture VI. 

On the whole subject of conscience, see President 'Wayland's Ele- 
ments of Moral Science, Book I. Chap. ii. — Ed. 



224 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

icrong, so far ihey are under an obligation to act accord- 
ingly." * 

I would not have quoted so many passages in illustra- 
tion of a point which appears to myself so very obvious, 
if I had not been anxious to counteract the authority of 
some eminent writers who have lately espoused a very 
different system, by showing how widely they have de- 
parted from the sound and philosophical views of their 
predecessors. I confess, too, I should have distrusted 
my own judgment, if, on a question so interesting to hu- 
man happiness, and so open to examination, I had been 
led, by any theoretical refinements, to a conclusion which 
was not sanctioned by the concurrent sentiments of other 
impartial inquirers. The fact, however, is, that, as this 
view of human nature is the most simple, so it is the most 
ancient which occurs in the history of moral science. It 
was the doctrine of the Pythagorean school, as appears 
from a fragment of Theages, a Pythagorean writer, pub- 
lished in Gale's Opuscula Mythologica. It is also ex- 
plained by Plato in some of his dialogues, in which he 
compared the soul to a commonwealth, and reason to the 
council of state, which governs and directs the whole. f 

* Discourse concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion, 
Proposition I. 3. 

t " tn Plato's dialogues the question is repeatedly discussed, whether 
the rule of action for man be the pursuit of pleasure and gain, or the in- 
ternal harmony of his nature. You will, many of you, recollect the 
lively and dramatic dialogue at the beginning of The Republic, in which 
the former of these opinions is asserted by one of the interlocutors, and 
the acute and decisive Socratic refutation which it encounters. You 
will recollect, too, the doctrine announced at the close of the fourth 
book, as the result of the previous discussion. ' Virtue, then, as we are 
thus led to see, is a health and beauty and well-being of the soul. 
Vice is a disease, and foulness, and infirmity.' And when the original 
question is, at this point of the argument, again asked, — whether it is 
better to be just or to be unjust, even if the injustice is to remain un- 
knoion by all and to meet no punishment, — the person to whom the 
argument is addressed, and who is, by this time, brought to a conviction 
of the truth of the doctrine which it is the object of the dialogue to in- 
culcate, says, ' Nay, Socrates, this question is now ridiculously super- 
fluous.' And in the ninth book, the discussion being really concluded, 
the speakers, playfully mimicking the practice of pronouncing, by the 
voice of a public crier, a solemn judgment upon the merit of a theatrical 
spectacle, agree to proclaim, — 'The son of Aristo gives his judgment 
that the most virtuous and just is also the most happy, and tiie wicked 
and unjust the most unhappy ' ; and further, ' that this is so, even if their 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 225 

In the following passage from Cicero the same doctrine 
is enforced in a manner peculiarly sublime and expressive, 
or, as Lactantius says, pcene divina voce. "Est quidem 
vera Lex, recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, 
constans, serapiterna, quae vocet ad officium jubendo, ve- 
tando a fraude deterreat, quae tamen neque probos frustra 
jubet aut vetat, nee improbos jubendo aut vetando movet. 
Huic legi nee obrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hac ali- 
quid licet, neque tota abrogari potest. Nee vero aut per 
senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus : neque 
est quaerendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius : nee 
erit alia Lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac ; 
sed et omnes gentes, et ornni tempore una lex et serapi- 
terna et iramulabilis continebit ; unusque erit communis 
quasi magister et imperator omnium Deus. Ille legis 
hujus inventor, disceptator, later. Cui qui non parebit, 
ipse se fugiet, ac, naturam hominis aspernatus, hoc ipso 
luet maximas poenas, etiarasi castera supplicia, quae putan- 
tur, effugerit." * 

It is very justly observed by Mr. Smith, (and I consider 
the remark as of the highest importance,) that " if the dis- 
tinction pointed out in the foregoing quotations between 
the moral faculty and our other active powers be acknowl- 
edged, it is of the less consequence lohat particular theory 
ice adopt concerning the origin of our moral ideas.'''' And 
accordingly, though he resolves moral approbation ulti- 
mately into a feeling of the mind, he nevertheless repre- 
sents the supremacy of conscience as a principle which is 
equally essential to all the different systems that have been 

deeds are hidden from all, men and gods.'"' — Whewell's Systematic 
Morality, Lecture VI. 

* De Repvb. Lib. IIL 22. " There is a true law, a right reason, con- 
gruous to nature, pervading all minds, constant, eternal; which calls to 
duty by its commands, and repels from wrong-doing by its prohibitions: 
and to the good does not command or forbid in vain, while the wick- 
ed are unmoved by its exhortations or its warnings. This law cannot 
be annulled, superseded, or overruled. No senate, no people, can loose 
us from it; no jurist, no interpreter, can explain it away. It is not 
one law at Rome, another at Athens; one at present, another at some 
future time ; but one law, perpetual and immutable, it extends to all 
nations and all times, the universal sovereign. Of this law the author , 
and giver is God. Whoever disobeys it flies from himself, and by the 
wrong thus done to his own nature, even though he should escape 
every other form of punishment, incurs the heaviest penalty." 



226 MORAL OBLIGATION. 

proposed on the subject. " Upon whatever we suppose our 
moral facuhies to be founded," (I quote his own words,) 
" whether upon a certain modification of reason, upon an 
original instinct called a moral sense, or upon some other 
principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted that they are 
given us for the direction of our conduct in this life. They 
carry along with them the most evident badges of their 
authority, which denote that they were set up within us to 
be the supreme arbiters of all our actions ; to superintend 
all our senses, passions, and appetites ; and to judge how 
far each of them was to be either indulged or restrained. 
Our moral faculties are by no means, as some have pre- 
tended, upon a level in this respect w-ith the other faculties 
and appetites of our nature, endowed with no more right 
to restrain these last than these last are to restrain them. 
No other faculty or principle of action judges of any 
other. Love does not judge of resentment, nor resent- 
ment of love. Those two passions may be opposite to 
one another, but cannot, with any propriety, be said to 
approve or disapprove of one another. But it is the pe- 
culiar office of those faculties now under consideration to 
judge, to bestow censure or applause upon all the other 
principles of our nature." 

" Since these, therefore," continues Mr. Smith, " were 
plainly intended to be the governing principles of human 
nature, the rules wiiich they prescribe are to be regarded 
as the commands and laws of the Deity promulgated by 
those vicegerents which he has thus set up within us. By 
acting according to their dictates we may be said, in some 
sense, to cooperate with the Deity, and to advance, as 
far as in our power, the plan of Providence. By acting 
otherwise, on the contrary, we seem to obstruct in some 
measure the scheme which the Author of Nature has 
established for the happiness and perfection of the world, 
and to declare ourselves in some measure the enemies of 
God. Hence we are naturally encouraged to hope for 
his extraordinary favor and reward in the one case, and 
to dread his vengeance and punishment in the other."* 

T have only to add further on this subject at present, 

* Theoiy of Moral Sentiments, Part III. Chap. v. 



MORAL OBLIGATION. 227 

that the supreme authority of conscience is feh and tacitly 
acknowledged by the worst no less than by the best of 
men ; for even they who have thrown oft all hypocrisy 
with the world are at pains to conceal their real character 
from their own eyes. No man ever, in a soliloquy or 
private meditation, avowed to himself that he was a vil- 
lain ; nor do I believe that such a character as Joseph, in 
The School for Scandal^ (who is introduced as reflecting 
coollyon his own knavery and baseness, without any un- 
easiness but what arises from the dread of detection,) ever 
existed in the world. Such men probably impose on 
themselves fully as much as they do upon others. Hence 
the various artifices of self-deceit which Butler has so well 
described in his discourses on that subject. 

It is said by St. Augustine, that at the delivery of that 
famous line of Terence, — 

" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto," — 

" I am a man, and feel an interest in all mankind," — the 
whole Roman theatre resounded with applause.* We 
may venture to say that a similar sentiment, well pro- 
nounced by an actor, would at this day, in the most cor- 
rupt capital in Europe, be followed by a similar burst of 
sympathetic emotion. 

" Voyez a nos spectacles 
Q,uand on peint quelque trait de candeur, de bonte, 
Ou brille en tout son jour la tendre humanite, 
Tous les ccBurs sont remplis d'une volupte pure, 
Et c'est la qu'on entend le cri de la nature." t 

" On such occasions," (as a late writer remarks,) 
"though we may think meanly of the genius of the poet, 
it is impossible not to think, and to be happy in thinking, 
highly of the people ; — the people whose opinions may 
often be folly, whose conduct may sometimes be madness, 
but whose sentiments are almost always honorable and 
just ; — the people whom an author may delight with 
bombast, may amuse with tinsel, may divert with inde- 
cency, but whom he cannot mislead in principle, nor hard- 
en into inhumanity. It is only the mob in the side boxes, 

* See a note on this line in Coleman's translation of Terence's Self- 
Tormentor. 
t Gresset, Le Mechant. 



228 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

who, in the coldness of self-interest, or the languor of out- 
worn dissipation, can hear unmoved the sentiments of 
compassion, of generosity, or of virtue."* 



CHAPTER V. 



OF CERTAIN PRINCIPLES WHICH COOPERATE WITH 
OUR MORAL POWERS IN THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE 
CONDUCT. 

In order to secure still more completely the good order 
of society, and to facilitate the acquisition of virtuous 
habits, nature has superadded to our moral constitution a 
variety of auxiliary principles, which sometimes give rise 
to a conduct agreeable to the rules of morality and highly 
useful to mankind, where the merit of the individual, con- 
sidered as a moral agent, is inconsiderable. Hence some 
of them have been confounded with our moral powers, or 
even supposed to be of themselves sufficient to account 
for the phenomena of moral perception, by authors whose 
views of human nature have not been sufficiently compre- 
hensive. The most important principles of this descrip- 
tion are, — 1st. A Regard to Character. 2d. Sympathy. 
3d. The Sense of the Ridiculous. And 4th. Taste. The 
principle of Self-love (which was treated of in a former 
section) cooperates very powerfully to the same purposes. 

Section I. 

OF DECENCY, OR A REGARD TO CHARACTER. 

Upon this subject I had formerly occasion to offer va- 
rious remarks in treating of the desire of esteem. But the 
view of it which I then took was extremely general, as I 
did not think it necessary for me to attend to the distinc- 
tion between intellectual and moral qualities. There can 

* Mackenzie's Account of the German Theatre. Transactions of the 
Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. II. Part ii. p. 174. 



SYMPATHY. 229 

be no doubt that a regard to the good opinion of our fel- 
low-creatures has great influence in promoting our exer- 
tions to cultivate both the one and the other ; but what we 
are more particularly concerned to remark at present is 
the effect which this principle has in strengthening our 
virtuous habits, and in restraining those passions which a 
sense of duty alone would not be sufficient to regulate. 

I have before observed, that the desire of esteem oper- 
ates in children before they have a capacity of distinguish- 
ing right from wrong ; and that the former principk^of 
action continues for a long time to be much more powerful 
than the latter. Hence it furnishes a most useful and ef- 
fectual engine in the business of education, more particu- 
larly by training us early to exertions of self-command and 
self-denial. It teaches us, for example, to restrain our ap- 
petites within those bounds which delicacy prescribes, and 
thus forms us to habits of moderation and temperance. 
And although our conduct cannot be denominated vir- 
tuous so long as a regard to the opinion of others is our 
sole motive, yet the habits we thus acquire in infancy and 
childhood render it more easy for us to subject our pas- 
sions to reason and conscience as we advance to maturity. 
The subject well deserves a more ample illustration ; but 
at present it is sufficient to recall these remarks to the 
recollection of the reader. 

Section II. 

OF SY'MPATHY. 

I. Mature and Functions of Sympathy.] That there 
is an exquisite pleasure annexed by the constitution of our 
nature to the sympathy or fellow-feeling of other men 
with our joys and sorrows, and even with our opinions, 
tastes, and humors, is a fact obvious to vulgar observa- 
tion. It is no less evident that we feel a disposition to 
accommodate the state of our own minds to that of our 
companions, wherever we feel a benevolent affection to- 
wards them, and that this accommodating temper is in 
proportion to the strength of our affection. In such cases 
sympathy would appear to be grafted on benevolence ; 
20 



230 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

and perhaps it might be found, on an accurate examina- 
tion, that the greater part of the pleasure which sympathy 
yields is resolvable into that which arises from the ex- 
ercise of kindness, and from the consciousness of being 
beloved. 

II. Jldam Smith'' s Theory.'] The phenomena gener- 
ally referred to sympathy have appeared to Mr. Smith 
so important, and so curiously connected, that he has 
been led to attempt an explanation from this single prin- 
ciple of all the phenomena of moral perception. In this 
attempt, however, (not to mention the vague use which 
he occasionally makes of the term,) he has plainly been 
misled, like many eminent philosophers before him, by 
an excessive love of simplicity ; and has mistaken a very 
subordinate principle in our moral constitution (or rather 
a principle superadded to our moral constitution as an 
auxiliary to the sense of duty) for that faculty which dis- 
tinguishes right from wrong, and which (by w-hat name 
soever we may choose to call it) recurs on us constantly 
in all our ethical disquisitions, as an ultimate fact in the 
nature of man. 

I shall take this opportunity of offering a few remarks 
on this most ingenious and beautiful theory, in the course 
of which I shall have occasion to state all that I think 
necessary to observe concerning the place which sympa- 
thy seems to me really to occupy in our moral constitu- 
tion. In stating these remarks, I would be understood to 
express myself with all the respect and veneration due to 
the talents and virtues of a writer, whose friendship I re- 
gard as one of the most fortunate incidents of my life, but, 
at the same time, with that entire freedom which the im- 
portance of the subject demands, and which I know that 
his candid and liberal mind would have approved. 

In addition to the incidental strictures which I have 
already hazarded on Mr. Smith's theory, I have yet to 
state two objections of a more general nature, to which it 
appears to me to be obviously liable. But before I pro- 
ceed to these objections, it is necessary for me to premise 
(which I shall do in Mr. Smith's words) a remark which 
I have not hitherto had occasion to mention, and which 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 231 

may be justly regarded as one of the most characteristical 
principles of his system. 

" Were it possible," says he, " that a human creature 
could grow up to manhood in some solitary place, without 
any communication with his own species, he could no 
more think of his own character, of the propriety or de- 
merit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or 
deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or deform- 
ity of his own face. All these are objects which he can- 
not easily see, which naturally he does not look at, and 
with regard to which he is provided with no mirror which 
can present them to his view. Bring him into society, 
and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he 
wanted before. It is placed in the countenance and be- 
haviour of those he lives with, which always mark when 
they enter into and wJien they disapprove of his senti- 
ments, and it is here that he first views the propriety and 
impropriety of his own passions, the beauty and deformity 
of his own mind." * 

TIT. Two Objections to the Theory in general.'] To 
this account of the origin of our moral sentiments it may be 
objected, — 1st. That, granting the proposition to be true, 
" that a human creature, who should grow up to manhood 
without any communication with his own species, could 
no more think of the propriety or demerit of his own sen- 
timents than of the beauty or deformity of his own face," 
it would by no means authorize the conclusion which is 
here deduced from it. The necessity of social inter- 
course, as an indispensable condition implied in the gener- 
ation and growth of our moral sentiments, does not arise 
merely from its effect in holding up a mirror for the ex- 
amination of our own character ; but from the impossi- 
bility of finding, in a solitary state, any field for the exer- 
cise of our most important moral duties. In such a state 
the moral faculty would inevitably remain dormant and 
useless, for the same reason that the organ of sight would 
remain useless and unknown to a person who should pass 
his whole life in the darkness of a dungeon. 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part III. Chap. i. 



222 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

2d. It may be objected to Mr. Smith's theory, that it 
confounds the means or expedients by which nature enables 
us to correct our moral judgments, with the principles in 
our constitution to which our moral judgments owe their 
origin. These means or expedients he has indeed de- 
scribed with singular penetration and sagacity, and by 
doing so has thrown new and most important lights on 
practical morality ; but, after all his reasonings on the 
subject, the metaphysical problem concerning the primary 
sources of our moral ideas and emotions will be found in- 
volved in the same obscurity as before. The intention of 
such expedients, it is perfectly obvious, is merely to ob- 
tain a just and fair view of circumstances ; and after this 
view iias been obtained, the question still remains, what 
constitutes the obligation upon me to act in a particular 
manner .'' In answer to this question it is said, that, from 
recollecting my own judgments in similar cases in which 
I was concerned, I infer in what light my conduct will ap- 
pear to society ; that there is an exquisite satisfaction an- 
nexed to mutual syn)pathy ; and that, in order to obtain 
this satisfaction, I accommodate my conduct, not to my 
own feelings, but to those of my fellow-creatures. Now 
I acknowledge that this may account for a n)an's assum- 
ing the appearance of virtue, and I believe that something 
of this sort is the real foundation of the rules of good 
breeding in polished society ; * but in the important con- 
cerns of life I apprehend there is something more ; for 
when I have once satisfied myself with respect to the con- 
duct which an impartial judge would approve of, 1 feel 
that this conduct is right for me, and that I am under a 
moral obligation to put it in practice. If I had had re- 
course to no expedient for correcting ray first judgment, I 
should nevertheless have formed some judgment or other 
of a particular conduct as right, wrong, or indifferent, and 
the only difference would have been, that I should prob- 

* This remnrk I borrow from Dr. Beattie, who, in his Essay on Trvtk, 
observes, that the foundation of good breeding is " that kind of sensi- 
bility or sympathy b\' which we suppose ourselves in tiie situation of 
others, adopt tiieir sentiments, and in a manner perceive their very 
thoughts." Part I. Chap. i. The observation well deserves to be pros- 
ecuted. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 233 

ably have decided im}3ropeily, from an erroneous or a 
pariia! view of the case. 

From these observations I conclude, that the words 
right and wrongs ought and ought not,* express simple 
ideas or notions, of which no explanation can be given. 
They are to be found in all languages, and it is impossible 
lo carry on any ethical speculation without them. Of this 
Mr. Smith himself furnishes a remarkable proof in the 
statement of his theory, not only by the occasional use 
which he makes of these and other synonymous expres- 
sions, but by his explicit and repeated acknowledgments, 
that the propriety of action cannot be always determined 
by the actual judgments of society, and that, in such 
cases, we must act according to the judgments which other 
men ought to have formed of our conduct. Is not this to 
admit that we have a standard of right and wrong in our 
own minds, of superior authority to any instinctive pro- 
pensity we may feel to obtain the sympathy of our fellow- 
creatures .'* 

It was in order to reconcile this acknowledgment with 
the genera] language of his system that Mr. Smith was 
forced to have recourse to the supposition of " «n abstract 
man within the breast, the representative of mankind and 
substitute of the Deity, whom nature has constituted the 
supreme judge of all our actions."! Of this very in- 
genious fiction he has availed himself in various passages 
of the first editions of his book ; but he has laid much 
greater stress upon it in the last edition, [the sixth,] pub- 
lished a short time before his death. An idea somewhat 
similar occurs in Lord Shaftesbury's Mvice to an Author^ 
where he observes, with that quaintness of phraseology 
which so often deforms his otherwise beautiful style, that 
"when the wise ancients spoke of a demon, genius, or 

* Dr. Hutcheson,in his Illustrations vpon the Moral Sense, calls ought 
a covfused word: — "As to that confused word ought" &c. Sect. I. 
ad fin. But for this he seems to have had no better reason than the im- 
possibility of defining it logically. And may not the same remark be 
applied to the words time, space., motion ? Was there ever a language 
in which tiiese words, together with those of ought and ought not, were 
not to be found ? Ought corresponds with the Set of the Greeks, and 
the oportet and decet of the Latins. « 

t Page 208, 5th edition. 

20* 



234 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

angel, to whom we are commilted from the moment of 
our birth, they meant no more than enigmatically to de- 
clare, ' that we have each of us a patient in ourselves ; that 
we are properly our own subjects of practice ; and that 
we then become due practitioners, when, by virtue of an 
intimate recess, we can discover a certain duplicity of 
soul, and divide ourselves into two parties.'" He after- 
wards tells us, that, "according as this recess was deep 
and intimate, and the dual number practically formed in us, 
we were supposed by the ancients to advance in morals 
and true wisdom." * 

By means of this fiction Mr. Sniith has rendered his 
theory (contrary to what might have been expected from 
its first aspect) perfectly coincident in its practical ten- 
dency with that cardinal principle of the Stoical philosophy 
which exhorts us to search for the rules of life, not with- 
out ourselves, but loilhin: — "Nee te qusesiveris extra." 
Indeed, Butler himself has not asserted the authority and 
supremacy of conscience in stronger terms than Mr. Smith, 
who represents this as a manifest and unquestionable prin- 
ciple, whatever particular theory we may adopt concern- 
ing the origin of our moral ideas. It is only to be regret- 
ted, that, instead of the metaphorical expression of " the 
man within the breast^ to whose opinions and feelings we 
find it of more consequence to conform our conduct than 
to those of the whole world," he had not made use of the 
simpler and more familiar words reason and conscience. 
This mode of speaking was indeed suggested to him, or 
rather obtruded on him, by the theory of sympathy, and 
nothing can exceed the skill and taste with which he has 
availed himself of its assistance in perfecting his system ; 
but it has the effect, with many readers, of keeping out of 
view the real state of the question, and (like Plato's com- 
monwealth of the soul and council of state) to encourage 
among inferior writers- a figurative or allegorical style in 
treating of subjects which, more than any other, require 
all the simplicity, precision, and logical consistency of 
which language is susceptible. 

* Part I. Sect. ii. 



SyMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 235 

IV. Particular Instances in which Smith lays too much 
Stress on Sympathy.] A few slight observations on de- 
tached passages of Mr. Smith's theory will be useful in 
illustrating more fully certain phenomena referred by him, 
rather too exclusively, to the principle of sympathy or 
fellow-feeling. 

In proof of the pleasure annexed to mutual sympathy, 
Mr. Smith remarks, that " a man is mortified when, after 
having endeavoured to divert the company, he looks around 
and sees that nobody laughs at his jest but himself."* It 
may be doubted, however, if in this case a disappointed 
sympathy be the chief cause of his uneasiness. Various 
other circumstances undoubtedly conspire, particularly the 
censure which the silence of the company conveys of his 
taste and judgment, together with the proof it exhibits of 
their sullenness and want of good-humor. 

The pleasure, too, which, according to Mr. Smith, we 
receive from reading to a stranger a poem whose effect 
on ourselves has been destroyed by repetition, may be 
explained, without any refinement about sympathy, by the 
satisfaction we always feel in communicating pleasure to 
another, combined with the flattering though indirect testi- 
mony paid to the justness of our taste by its coincidence 
with that of an individual whose judgment we respect. 
The sympathy of an acknowledged fool would certainly 
be in the same circumstances a source of mortification. 

In mentioning these considerations, I do not mean to 
dispute that there is an exquisite pleasure arising from 
mutual sympathy ; but only to suggest, that Mr. Smith 
has ascribed to this principle solely various phenomena, 
in accounting for which other causes appear to be no less 
deserving of attention. 

The versatile and accommodating manners which Mr. 
Smith has so beautifully described in various passages of 
his Theory may be assumed from different motives, — in 
some men from a desire to promote the happiness of those 
around them ; and where this is the case, it is unquestion- 
ably one of the most amiable and meritorious forms in 
which benevolence can appear, and contributes more by 

* Part I. Sect. i. Chap. ii. 



236 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

Its daily and constant operation to increase llie comfort of 
human life than those splendid exertions of virtue which 
we are so seldom called upon to make. In other men, 
in whom tiie benevolent affections are not so strong, it 
may jiroceed chiefly from a view to their own tranquillity 
and amusement, and may render them agreeable and harm- 
less companions, without giving them any claim to the ap- 
pellation of virtuous. In many it arises from views of self- 
interest and ambition ; and in such men, whatever pleasure 
we may have derived from their society, these qualities 
never fail to inspire universal distrust and dislike, as soon 
as they are known to be the real motives of that pliancy 
and versatility with which we were at first captivated. It 
would appear, therefore, that the accommodating temper, 
where it is approved as morally right, is not approved on 
its own account, but as an expression of a benevolent dis- 
position. 

From the combined efforts of the actor and of the spec- 
tator towards a mutual sympathy, Mr. Smith endeavours 
to trace the origin of "• two different sets of virtues.''^ 
Upon the effort of the spectator to enter into the situation 
of the person principally concerned, and to raise his sym- 
pathetic emotions to a level with the emotions of the actor, 
are founded " the gentle, the amiable virtues, the virtues 
of candid condescension and indulgent humanity." Upon 
the effort of the person principally concerned to low^er his 
own emotions, so as to correspond as nearly as possible 
with those of the spectator, are founded " the great, the 
awful, and respectable virtues, the virtues of self-denial, of 
self-government, of that command of the passions which 
subjects all movements of our nature to what our own 
dignity and honor, and the propriety of our own conduct, 
require." * If the word qualities were substituted for vir- 
tues, I agree in general with this doctrine. The mode of 
expression, however, certainly requires correction. " Can- 
did condescension," and " indulgent humanity " are al- 
ways amiable ; and when they really proceed from a dis- 
position habitually benevolent, are with great propriety 
called virtues. "Self-denial and self-government" are 

• Ibid., Chap. V. 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 237 

always respectable, and sometimes awful qualities, be- 
cause tliey indicate a force of mind which ^e\v men pos- 
sess ; but it depends on the motives from which they are 
exercised, whether they indicate a virtuous or a vicious 
character. 

Asa further illustration of the foregoing doctrine, Mr. 
Smith considers particularly the degrees of the different 
passions which are consistent with propriety, and en- 
deavours to show, that in every case it is decent or in- 
decent to express a passion strongly, according as man- 
kind are disposed or not disposed to sympathize with it. 
It is unbecoming, for example, to express strongly any of 
those passions which arise from a certain condition of the 
body ; because other men who are not in the same condi- 
tion cannot be expected to sympathize with them. It is 
unbecoming to cry out with bodily pain, because the sym- 
pathy felt by the spectator bears no proportion to the 
acuteness of what is felt by the sufferer. The case is 
somewhat similar with those passions which take their ori- 
gin from a particular turn or habit of the imagination. * 

All violent expressions of such passions are undoubt- 
edly offensive, and good breeding dictates that they should 
be restrained ; but not because the spectator finds it dif- 
ficult to enter into the situation of the person principally 
concerned ; perhaps the opposite reason would be nearer 
the truth. To eat voraciously in the presence of a com- 
pany who have already dined would be obviously inde- 
cent ; but 1 apprehend, not so much so as to eat even 
moderately in presence of one whom we knew to be hun- 
gry, and who was not permitted to share in the repast. 
With respect to bodily pain, it appears to me that there 
is no calamity whatever which so completely interests the 
spectator, or with which his sympathy is so acute and 
lively. It is on this account that a steady composure 
under it, while it indicates the manly quality of self-com- 
mand, has something in it peculiarly amiable, when we 
suppose that it proceeds in any degree from a tenderness 
for the feelings of others. In many surgical operations it 
is probable that the imagination of the pain exceeds the 

* Ibid., Sect. ii. Chap. i. 



238 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

reality ; and there cannot be a doubt, that, where the 
patient is the object of our love, the sufferings vvliich he 
feels require less fortitude than ours. 

Again, in the case of the unsocial passions of " hatred 
and resentment," the sympathy of the spectator " is divid- 
ed " between the person who feels the passion and the 
person who is the object of it. " We are concerned for 
both, and our fear for what the one may suffer damps our 
resentment for what the other has suffered." Hence the 
imperfect degree in which we sympathize with such pas- 
sions, and the propriety, when under their influence, of 
moderating their expression to a much greater degree than 
in the case of any other emotions.* 

Abstraction made of all considerations of this kind, satis- 
factory reasons may be given for our listening with caution 
to the dictates of resentment when we ourselves are the 
sufi^erers. Experience must soon satisfy us how apt ibis 
passion is to blind the judgment, and to exaggerate in our 
estimation the injury we have received ; and how cer- 
tainly we lay in matter for future remorse for our cooler 
hours, if we obey its first suggestions. A wise man, 
therefore, learns to delay forming his resolutions till his 
passion has in some degree subsided ; — not in order to 
obtain the sympathy of other men, but in order to secure 
the approbation of his own conscience. If he conceives 
to himself what conduct the impartial spectator will ap- 
prove of, it is merely as an expedient to divest himself of 
the partialities of self-love ; and when he acts agreeably 
to what he supposes to be, on this occasion, the unbiased 
judgment of spectators, his satisfaction arises, not from the 
possession of their sympathy, but from a consciousness 
that he has done his best to ascertain what was right, and 
has regulated his conduct accordingly. 

" Where there is no envy in the case, our propensity 
to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propen- 
sity to sympathize with sorrow." 

"It is on account of this dull sensibility to the afflic- 
tions of others, that magnanimity, amidst great distress, 
always appears so divinely graceful."! 

* Ibid., Chap. iii. t Ibid., Sect. iii. Chap. i. 



SYMPATHV. ADAM SMITH. 239 

If this were true, would it not follow that the admira- 
tion of heroic magnanimity would be in proportion to the 
insensibility of the spectator? 

"• Finally, it is because mankind are more disposed to 
court the favor, to comply with the humors, and to judge 
with indulgence the actions, of the prosperous than of 
the unfortunate, that we make parade of our riches, and 
conceal our poverty." — " Jt is the misfortunes of kings 
alone," Mr. Smith adds, " which afford the proper sub- 
jects for tragedy." * 

Of this last proposition I confess I have some doubts, 
at least to the extent in which it is here stated ; and 1 am 
inclined to think that in those cases where it holds, it may 
be easily accounted for on more obvious principles. By 
far the greater numer of tragedies are founded on histori- 
cal facts ; and history records only the transactions of 
men in elevated stations. But even in these tragedies the 
most interesting personages are frequently domestics or 
captives. The old shepherd in Douglas is surely a more 
interesting character than Lord Randolph. And for my 
own part I am not ashamed to confess that I have shed 
more tears at some tragedies bourgeoises and comedies 
larmoyantes of very inferior merit, than were ever extort- 
ed from me by the exquisite poetry of Corneille, Racine, 
or Voltaire. 

The fortunes of the great, indeed, interest us more than 
those of men in inferior stations. But for this there are 
various causes, independent of that assigned by Mr. Smith. 
1. Their destiny involves the fortunes of many, and fre- 
quently affects the public interest. 2. Their situation 
points them out to public attention, and renders them sub- 
jects of general and daily conversation ; and, accordingly, 
we may remark a curiosity perfectly analogous to that 
which the history of the great excites with respect to the 
biography of all men who have been long and constantly 
in the view of the world. The trifling anecdotes in the 
hfe of Quin or Garrick find as many readers as the 
important events connected with the history of Frederic 
the Great. 

* Ibid., Chap, ii. 



240 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

V. Historical J^otices of the Doctrine.'} In my Ac- 
count of the Life and Writings of JMr. Smith., I observ- 
ed, that, according to the learned translator of Aristotle's 
Ethics and Politics, " the general idea which runs through 
Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments was obviously 
borrowed from the following passage of Polybius. ' From 
the union of the two sexes, to which all are naturally in- 
clined, children are born. When any of these, therefore, 
being arrived at perfect age, instead of yielding suitable 
returns of gratitude and assistance to those by w-hom they 
have been bred, on the contrary attempt to injure them 
by words or actions, it is manifest that those who behold 
the wrong, after having also seen the sufferings and the 
anxious cares that were sustained by the parents in the 
nourishment and education of their children, must be 
greatly offended and displeased at such proceeding. For 
man, who, among all the various kinds of animals, is alone 
endowed with the faculty of reason, cannot, like the rest, 
pass over such actions, but will make reflection on what 
he sees ; and, comparing likewise the future with the pres- 
ent, will not fail to express his indignation at this injurious 
treatment ; to which, as he foresees, he may also at some 
time be exposed. Thus again, when any one who has 
been succoured by another in the time of danger, instead 
of showing the like kindness to his benefactor, endeavours 
at any time to destroy or hurt him, it is certain that all 
men must be shocked by such ingratitude, through sym- 
pathy with the resentment of their neighbour, and from an 
apprehension also that the case may be their own. And 
from hence arises in the mind of every man a certain no- 
tion of the nature and force of duty, in which consists both 
the beginning and the end of justice. In like manner, the 
man who, in defence of others, is seen to throw himself 
the foremost into every danger, and even to sustain the 
fury of the fiercest animals, never fails to obtain the loud- 
est acclamations of applause and veneration from all the 
multitude, while he who shows a different conduct is pur- 
sued with censure and reproach. x\nd thus it is that the 
people begin to discern the nature of things honorable and 
base, and in what consists the difference between them ; 
and to perceive that the former, on account of the advan- 



I 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 241 

tage that attends them, are fit to be admired and imitated, 
and the latter to be detested and avoided.' " * 

" The doctrine," says Dr. GilHes, " contained in this 
passage is expanded by Dr. Smith into a theory of moral 
sentiments. But he departs from his author in placing 
the perception of right and wrong in sentiment or feeling, 
ultimately and simply. Polybius, on the contrary, main- 
tains, with Aristotle, that these notions arise from reason 
or intellect operating on affection or appetite ; or, in other 
words, that the moral faculty is a compound, and may be 
resolved into two simpler principles of the mind."f 

The only expression I object to in the preceding sen- 
tences is the phrase his author, which has the appearance 
of insinuating a charge of plagiarism against Mr. Smith ; — 
a charge which, I am confident, he did not deserve, and 
to which the above extract does not, in my opinion, afford 
any plausible color. It exhibits, indeed, an instance of 
a curious coincidence between two philosophers in their 
views of the same subject, and as such I have no doubt 
that Mr. Smith himself would have remarked it, had it 
occurred to his memory when he was writing his book. 
Of such accidental coincidences between different minds, 
examples present themselves every day to those who, 
after having drawn from their internal resources all the 
lights they could supply on a particular question, have the 
curiosity to compare their own conclusions with those of 
their predecessors. And it is extremely worthy of obser- 
vation, that, in proportion as any conclusion approaches 
to the truth, the number of previous approximations to it 
may be reasonably expected to be multiplied. 

In the instance before us, however, the question about 
originality is of httle or no moment, for the peculiar merit 
of Mr. Smith's work does not lie in his general principle, 
but in the skilful use he has made of it to give a systemati- 
cal arrangement to the most important discussions and 
doctrines of ethics. In this point of view, the Theory of 
JMoral Sentiments may be justly regarded as one of the 
most original efforts of the human mind in that branch of 



* Lib. VI. Cap. vi., Hampton's translation. 

t Gillies's Aristot. Ethics, Book HI. Chap, iv., note. 

.21 



242 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

science to which it relates ; and even if we were to sup- 
pose that it was first suggested to the author by a remark 
of which the world had been in possession for two thousand 
years before, this very circumstance would only reflect a 
stronger lustre on the novelty of his design, and on the in- 
vention and taste displayed in its execution. 

In the same work I have observed, that, " in studying 
the connection and filiation of successive theories, when 
we are at a loss in any instance for a link to complete the 
continuity of philosophical speculation, it seems much 
more reasonable to search for it in the systems of the im- 
mediately preceding period, and in the inquiries which then 
occupied the public attention, than in detached sentences, 
or accidental expressions gleaned from the relics of distant 
ages. It is thus only that we can hope to seize the pre- 
cise point of view in which an author's subject first pre- 
sented itself to his attention, and to account to our own 
satisfaction, from the particular aspect under which he saw 
it, for the subsequent direction which was given to his 
curiosity. In following such a plan, our object is not to 
detect plagiarisms, which we suppose men of genius to 
have intentionally concealed, but to fill up an apparent 
chasm in the history of science, by laying hold of the 
thread which insensibly guided the mind from one station 
to another." Upon these principles our attention is natu- 
rally directed on the present occasion to the inquiries of 
Dr. Buder, in preference to those of any other author, 
ancient or modern. At the time when Mr. Sm.ith began 
his literary career, Butler unquestionably stood highest 
among the ethical writers of England ; and his works ap- 
pear to have produced a still deeper and more lasting im- 
pression in Scodand than in the other part of the island. 
Of the esteem in which they were held by Lord Kames 
and Mr. Hume, satisfactory documents remain in their 
published letters ; nor were his writings less likely to at- 
tract the notice of Mr. Smith, in consequence of the point- 
ed and unanswerable objections which they contain to some 
of the favorite opinions of his predecessor, Dr. Hutcheson. 

VI. Butler''s Views on this Subject.] The probability 
of this conjecture is confirmed by the obvious and easy 



SYMPATHY. ADAM SMITH. 243 

transition which connects the theory of sympathy with 
Butler's train of thinking in his Sermon On Self-deceit. 
In order to free the mind from the influence of its artifices, 
experience gradually teaches us, (as Butler has excellently 
shown,) either to recollect the judgments we have for- 
merly passed in similar circumstances on the conduct of 
others, or to state cases to ourselves, in which we and all 
our personal concerns are left entirely out of the question. 
Hence it was not an unnatural inference, on the first aspect 
of the fact, that our only ideas of right and wrong, with 
respect to our own conduct, are derived from our senti- 
ments with respect to the conduct of others. This, ac- 
cordingly, (as we have already seen,) is the distinguishing 
principle of Mr. Smith's theory. 

I have formerly referred to a note in Butler's fifth Ser- 
mon, in which he has exposed the futility of Hobbes's 
definition of pity. In the same note, it is remarked further 
by the very acute and profound author, that Hobbes's 
premises, if admitted to be sound, so far from establishing 
his favorite doctrine concerning the selfish nature of man, 
would afford an additional illustration of the provision made 
in his constitution for the establishment and maintenance 
of the social union. "If there be really any such thing 
as the fiction or imagination of danger to ourselves from 
sight of the miseries of others, which Hobbes speaks of, 
and which he has absurdly mistaken for the whole of com- 
passion, — if there be any thing of this sort common to 
mankind distinct from the reflection of reason, it would be 
a most remarkable instance of what was farthest from his 
thoughts, namely, of a mutual syrgpathy between each 
particular of the species, — a fellow-feeling common to 
mankind. It would not, indeed, be an instance of our sub- 
stituting others for ourselves, but it would be an example 
of our substituting ourselves for others." To those who 
are at all acquainted with Mr. Smith's book, it is unneces- 
sary for me to observe how very precisely Butler has here 
touched on the general fact which is assumed as the basis 
of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

In various other parts of Butler's writings there are 
manifest anticipations of Mr. Smith's ethical speculations. 
In his Sermon, for example, On Forgiveness of Injuries^ 



244 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

he expresses himself thus : — " Without knowing par- 
ticulars, I take upon me to assure all persons who think 
they have received indignities or injurious treatment, that 
they may depend upon it, as in a manner certain, that the 
offence is not so great as they themselves imagine. We 
are in such a peculiar situation, with respect to injuries 
done to ourselves, that we can scarce any more see them 
as they really are than our eye can see itself. If we could 
place ourselves at a due distance, (that is, be really un- 
prejudiced,) we should frequently discern that to be in 
reality inadvertence and mistake in our enemy, which we 
now fancy we see to be malice or scorn. From this 
proper point of view we should likewise, in all probability, 
see something of these latter in ourselves, and most cer- 
tainly a great deal of the former. Thus the indignity or 
injury would almost infinitely lessen, and perhaps at last 
come out to be nothing at all. Self-love is a medium of 
a peculiar kind ; in these cases it magnifies every thing 
which is amiss in others, at the same time that it lessens 
every thing amiss in ourselves." 

The following passage in Butler's Sermon On Self-de- 
ceit, is still more explicit. " It would very much prevent 
our being misled by this self-partiality, to reduce that prac- 
tical rule of our Saviour — Whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so do them — to our judgment 
or way of thinking. This rule, you see, consists of two 
parts. One is to substitute another for yourself when you 
take a survey of any part of your behaviour, or consider 
what is proper and fit and reasonable for you to do upon 
any occasion ; the other part is, that you substitute your- 
self in the room of another, — consider yourself as the per- 
son affected by such a behaviour, or towards whom such 
an action is done, and then you would not only see, b(it 
likewise feel, the reasonableness or unreasonableness of 
such an action or behaviour." * 

* The same idea is stated with great clearness and conciseness by 
Hobbes. " There is an easy rule to know upon a sudden, whether the 
action I be to do be against the law of nature or not. And it is but 
this, — That a man imacrine himself in the place of the party with ichom 
he hath to do, and reciprocally him in his. Which is no more but 
changing (as it were) of the scales; for every man's passion weigheth 
heavy in his own scale, but not in the scale of his neighbour. And this 



ridicule. 245 

Section IIL 
of the sense of the ridiculous. 

I. Objects of Ridicule.'] Another auxiliary principle 
to the moral faculty yet remains to be considered, — the 
sense of ridicule., and the anxiety which all men feel to 
avoid whatever is likely to render them the objects of it. 
The subject is extremely curious and interesting ; but the 
time I have bestowed on the former article obliges me to 
confine myself to a very short explanation of the meaning 
of the word, and of the relation which the principle denot- 
ed by it bears to our nobler motives of action. 

The natural and proper object of ridicule is those smaller 
improprieties in character and manners which do not rouse 
our feelings of moral indignation, or impress us with a 
melancholy sense of human depravity. In the words of 
Aristotle, to ysloiov^ or the ridiculous, may be defined to 
be TO ttiaxoq avadvvov, the deformed without hurt or mis- 
chief or (as he has explained his own meaning) "those 
smaller faults which are neither painful nor pernicious, but 
unbeseeming^^ ; and "of which," he adds, "the proper 
correction is not reproach, but laughter.'''' 

In stating this as a general principle with respect to the 
ridiculous, I would not be understood to assert that every 
thing which is ridiculous implies immorality, in the strict 
acceptation of that word. Ignorance, absurdity in reason- 
ing, even a want of acquaintance with the established 
ceremonial of behaviour, often provoke our laughter with 
irresistible force. What is ridiculous, however, always 
implies some imperfection, and exposes the individual to 
whom it attaches to a species of contempt, of which (how 

rule is very well known and expressed in the old dictate, Quod tihi fieri 
non vis, alteri ne feceris.'" — De Corpore Politico, Chap. IV. 

It is observed by Gibbon that this golden rule of doing as we would 
be done by is to be found in a moral treatise of Isocrates. — Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. LIV., note. 

[For other critical notices of Adam Smith's theory, see Brown's Phi- 
losophy of the Human Mind, Lect. LXXX. and LXXXI. Cousin, Phi- 
losophic Morale, Seconde Partie : Ecole Ecossaise, Lemons IV. -VI. 
Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lectures XVI.- XVIII.] 
21 * 



246 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

good-humored soever) no man would choose to be the 
object. 

Perhaps, indeed, it might be found, on a more accurate 
analysis of this part of our constitution, that it is not, in 
such cases, merely the intellectual or physical defect which 
excites our ridicule, but the contrast between these and 
some moral impropriety or imperfection, which either con- 
ceals the defect from the individual himself, or induces 
him to attempt concealing it from others ; and conse- 
quently that the sentiment of ridicule always involves, 
more or less, a sentiment of moral disapprobation.' One 
thing is certain, that intellectual and physical imperfections 
never appear so ridiculous as when accompanied with 
affectation, hypocrisy, vanity, pride, or an obvious incon- 
gruity between the pretensions of an individual and the 
education he has received, or the station in which he was 
originally placed. 

Upon this question, however, I shall not at present pre- 
sume to decide. It is sufficient for ray purpose, if it be 
granted that nothing is ridiculous but what falls short, 
some way or other, of our ideas of excellence ; or, (as 
Cicero expresses it,) " Locus et regio quasi ridiculi, tur- 
pitudine et deformitate quadam continetur." * 

II. Final Cause of this Principle.] Hence, I think, 
raa'y be traced a beautiful final cause in this part of our 
frame. For while it enlarges the fund of our enjoyment, 
by rendering the more trifling imperfections of our i'ellow- 
creatures a source of amusement to us, it excites the ex- 
ertions of every individual to correct those imperfections 
by which the ridicule of others is likely to be provoked. 
As our eagerness, too, to correct these imperfections may 
be presumed to be weak in proportion as we apprehend 
them to be, in a moral view, of trifling moment, we are 
so formed, that the painful feelings produced by ridicule 
are often more poignant than those arising from the con- 
sciousness of having rendered ourselves the objects of 
strong moral disapprobation. Even the consciousness of 

* De Oratorc, Lib. II. 58. " The place and, as it were, province of 
ridicule is confined to baseness and deformity." 



RIDICULE. 247 

being hated by mankind is to the generality of men less in- 
tolerable than what the poet calls 

" The world's dread laugh, 
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn." 

It furnishes no objection to these observations, that the 
sense of ridicule is not always favorable to virtuous con- 
duct ; and that it frequently tends very powerfully to mis- 
lead us from our duty. The same remark may be ex- 
tended to the desire of esteem, and even to the moral fac- 
ulty, — that they are liable to be perverted by education 
and fashion. But the great ends of our being are to be 
collected from the general scope of the principles of our 
constitution ; not from the particular instances in which 
this scope is thwarted by adventitious circumstances ; and 
nothing surely can be more evident than thfs, that the 
three principles just mentioned were all intended to co- 
operate together, and to lead to a conduct favorable to the 
improvement of the individual, and to the general interests 
of society. 

The sense of ridicule, in particular, although it has a 
manifest reference to such a scene of imperfection as we 
are placed in at present, is, on the whole, a most impor- 
tant auxiliary to our sense of duty, and well deserves a 
careful examination in an analysis of the moral constitu- 
tion of man. It is one of the most striking characteristics 
of the human constitution, as distinguished from that of 
the lower animals, and has an intimate connection with 
the highest and noblest principles of our nature. As Mil- 
ton has observed, — 

" Smiles from reason flow, 
To brutes denied"; 

and it may be added, that they not only imply die power of 
reason, in the more limited acceptation of that word, as 
applicable to the perception of truth and falsehood, but 
the moral faculty, or that power by which we distinguish 
right from lorong. Indeed, they imply the power oi rea- 
son (in both acceptations of the term) in a high state of 
cultivation. 

In the education of youth, there is nothing which re- 
quires more serious attention than the proper regulation of 



248 AUXILIARY PRIxNXIPLES. 

the sense of ridicule ; nor is there any instance in which 
the legislator has it more in his power to influence national 
manners, than by watching over those public exhibitions 
which avail themselves of this principle of human nature, 
as a vehicle of entertainment to the multitude. 



Section IV. 

OF TASTE, CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATION TO MORALS. 

I. Taste applicable to Jllorals.] From the explanation 
formerly given of the import of the phrases moral beauty 
and moral deformity, it may be easily conceived in what 
manner the character and the conduct of our fellow-crea- 
tures may become subservient to the gratification of taste. 
The use which the poet makes of this class of our intel- 
tectual pleasures is entirely analogous to the resources 
which he borrows from the charms of external nature. 
By skilful selections and combinations, characters more 
exalted and more pleasing may be drawn than have ever 
fallen under our observation ; and a series of events may 
be exhibited in perfect consonance to our moral feelings. 
Rewards and punishments may be distributed by the poet 
with an exact regard to the merits of individuals ; and 
those irregularities in the distribution of happiness and 
misery, which furnish the subject of so many complaints 
in real life, may be corrected in the world created by his 
genius. Here, too, the poet borrows from nature the 
model after which he copies, not only as he accommodates 
his imaginary arrangements to his unperverted sense of 
justice, but as he accommodates them to the general laics 
by which the wxrld is governed ; for whatever e:xceptions 
may occur in particular cases, there can be no more doubt 
about the fact, that virtue is the direct road to happi- 
ness, and vice to misery, than that, in tlie material world, 
blemishes and defects are lost amid prevailing beauty and 
order. 

The power of moral taste, like that which has for its 
object the beauty of material forms and the various pro- 
ductions of the fine arts, requires much exercise for its de- 
velopment and culture. The one species of taste, also, 



MORAL TASTE. 249 

as well as the other, is susceptible of a false refinement, 
injurious to our own happiness, and to our usefulness as 
members of society. 

II. Dangers incident to a false Refinement of Moral 
Taste.'] With this false refinement of taste is sometimes 
connected the peculiar species of misanthrop)^ which is 
grafted on a worthy and benevolent heart. When the 
standard of moral excellence we have been accustomed to 
dwell upon in imagination is greatly elevated above the 
common attainments of humanity, we are apt to become 
too difficult and fastidious (if I may use the expression) 
in our moral taste ; or, in plainer language, to become un- 
reasonably censorious of the follies and vices of our con- 
temporaries. In such cases, it may happen that the native 
benevolence of the mind, by being habitually directed to- 
wards ideal characters, may prove a source of real dissat- 
isfaction and dislike towards those with whom we associate. 
Such a disposition, when carried to an extreme, not only 
sours the temper, and dries up all the springs of innocent 
comfort which nature has so liberally provided for us in 
the common incidents of life, but, by withdrawing a man 
from active pursuits, renders all his talents and virtues use- 
less to society. A character of this description has fur- 
nished to Moliere the subject of the most finished of all his 
dramatic pieces, and to Marmontel, of one of his most 
agreeable and useful tales. The former of these is uni- 
versally known as the masterpiece of French comedy ; but 
the latter possesses also an unconmion degree of merit by 
the hints it suggests for curing the weaknesses in which 
the character originates, and by the interesting contrast it 
exhibits between the misanthrope of Moliere, and a man 
who unites inflexibility of principle with that accommoda- 
tion of temper which is necessary for the practical ex- 
ercise of virtue. The great nurse and cherisher of this 
species of misanthropy is solitary contemplation ; and the 
only effectual remedy is society and business, together 
with a habit of directing the attention rather to the correc- 
tion of our own faults than to a jealous and suspicious ex- 
amination of the motives which influence the conduct of 
our neighbours. 



250 AUXILIARY PRINCIPLES. 

Considered as a principle of action, a cultivated moral 
taste, while it provides an effectual security against the 
grossness necessarily connected with many vices, cher- 
ishes a temper of mind friendly to all that is amiable, or 
generous, or elevated in our nature. When separated,, 
however, as it sometimes is, from a strong sense of duly, 
it can scarcely fail to prove a fallacious guide ; the in- 
fluence of fashion, and of other casual associations, tend- 
ing perpetually to lead it astray. This is more particu- 
larly remarkable in men to whom the gratifications of taste 
in general form the principal object of pursuit, and whose 
habits of life encourage them to look no higher for their 
rule of conduct than the way of the world. 

The language employed by some of the Greek philoso- 
phers in their speculations concerning the nature of virtue 
seems, on a superficial view, to imply that they supposed 
the moral faculty to be wholly resolvable into a sense of 
the beautiful ; and hence Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Hutche- 
son, and others, have been Jed to adopt a phraseology 
which has the appearance of substituting taste, in contra- 
distinction to reason and conscience, as the ultimate stand- 
ard of right and wrong. 

While on this subject, I cannot help taking notice of a 
highly exceptionable passage which occurs in one of Mr. 
Burke's later publications, — a passage in v/hich, after 
contrasting the polished and courtly manners of the higher 
orders with the coarseness and vulgarity of the multitude, 
he remarks, that among the former " vice itself lost half 
its evil by losing all its grossness." * The fact, ac- 
cording to my view of things, is precisely the reverse ; 
that the malignant contagiousness of vice is increased ten- 
fold by every circumstance which draws a veil over or 
disguises its native deformity. On this argument volumes 
might be written, and I sincerely wish that a hand could 
be found equal to the task. At present, I must content 
myself with recommending it to the serious attention of 
moralists, as one of the most important topics of practical 
ethics which the actual circumstances of this part of the 
world point out as an object of philosophical discussion. 

* At the close of the eloquent description of the queen, in his Reflec- 
tions on the Revolution in France. 



FREE AGENCY. 251 

CHAPTER VI. 

OF MAN'S FREE AGENCY. 

Section I. 

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

I. Man's Free Jigency has been called in question by 
Speculative Minds.] All the foregoing inquiries concern- 
ing the moral constitution of man proceed on the suppo- 
sition, that he has a freedon:i of choice between good and 
evil, and that, when he deliberately performs an action 
which he knows to be wrong, he renders himself justly 
obnoxious to punishment. That this supposition is agree- 
able to the common apprehensions of mankind will not be 
disputed. 

From very early times, indeed, the truth of the supposi- 
tion has been called in question by a few speculative men, 
who have contended that the actions we perform are the 
necessary result of the constitution of our minds, operated 
on by the circumstances of our external situation ; and 
that what we call moral delinquencies are as much a part 
of our destiny as the corporeal or intellectual qualities we 
have received from nature. The argument in support of 
this doctrine has been proposed in various forms, and has 
been frequently urged with the confidence of demonstra- 
tion.* 

This question about predestination and free-will has 
furnished, in all ages and countries, inexhaustible matter 
of contention, both to philosophers and divines. In the 
ancient schools of Greece it is well known how generally 
and how keenly it was agitated. Among the Mahometans 
it constitutes one of the principal points of division be- 
tween the followers of Omar and those of Ali ; and among 

* The rest of this chapter was thrown by the author into an ap- 
pendix. In this edition it is inserted in its place, as being necessary to 
the discussion. Some retrenchments have been made in order to find 
room for the notes which are intended to give some slight intimations 
of the present state of the controversy. — Ed. 



252 FREE AGENCY. 

the ancient Jews it was the subject of endless dispute be- 
tween the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It is scarcely 
necessary for me to add, what violent controversies it has 
produced, and still continues to produce, in the Christian 
world. 

II. Explanation of Terms used in this Controversy.'} 
As this controversy, like most others in metaphysics, has 
been involved in much unnecessary perplexity by the am- 
biguity of language, a (ew brief remarks on some equivo- 
cal terms connected with the question at issue may perhaps 
add something to the perspicuity and precision of the fol- 
lowing reasonings. 

]. The word volition is defined by Locke to be " an 
act of the mind, knowingly exerting that dominion it takes 
itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, 
or withholding it from, any particular action."* Dr. 
Reid defines it more briefly to be " the determination of 
the mind to do or not to do something which we conceive 
to be in our power." He remarks, at the same time, 
that " this definition is not strictly logical, inasmuch as 
the determination of the mind is only another term for 
volition. But it ought to be observed, that the most sim- 
ple acts of the mind do not admit of being logically defined. 
The only way to form a precise notion of them is to re- 
flect attentively upon them as we feel them in ourselves. 
Without this reflection no definition can enable us to reason 
about them with correctness."! 

2. It is necessary to form a distinct notion of what is 
meant by the word volition, in order to understand the im- 
port of the word will ; for this last word properly ex- 
presses that power of the mind of which volition is the act^ 
and it is only by attending to what we experience, while 
we are conscious of the act, that we can understand any 
thing concerning the nature of the power. 

The word will, however, is not always used in this its 
proper acceptation, but is frequently substituted for voli- 
tion ; as when I say that my hand moves in obedience to 
my will. This, indeed, happens to the names of most of 

* Essmj conceridna Hainan Understanding, Book II. Chap. xxi. § 15. 
t Essays on the Active Powers, Essay II. Chap. i. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 253 

the powers of the mind, — that the same word is employed 
to express the power and the act. Thus imagination sig- 
nifies both the power and the act of imagining ; abstraction 
signifies both the power and the act of abstracting ; and so 
in other instances. But ahhough the word will may, with- 
out departing from the usual forms of speech, be used in- 
discriminately for the power and the act, the word volition 
applies only to the latter ; and it would undoubtedly con- 
tribute to the distinctness of our reasonings to restrict the 
signification of the word icill entirely to the former. 

It is not necessary, I apprehend, to enlarge any more 
on the meaning of these terms. It is to be learned only 
from careful reflection on what passes in our own minds, 
and to multiply words upon the subject would only involve 
it in obscurity. 

3. There is, however, a state of the mind perfectly dis- 
tinct both from the power and the act of willing, with 
which they have been frequently confounded, and of which 
it may therefore be proper to mention the characteristical 
marks. The state 1 refer to is properly called desire, the 
distinction between which and ivill was first clearly point- 
ed out by Mr. Locke. " I find the loill,^^ says he, " often 
confounded with several of the affections, especially desire, 
and that by men who would not willingly be thought not 
to have had very distinct notions of things, and not to have 
writ very clearly about them." — " This," he justly adds, 
"has been no small occasion of obscurity and mistake in 
this matter, and therefore is, as much as may be, to be 
avoided." The substance of his remarks on the appro- 
priate meaning of these two terms amounts to the two fol- 
lowing propositions: — 1. That at the same moment a 
man may desire one thing and will another. 2. That at 
the same moment a man may have contrary desires, but 
cannot have contrary wills. The notions, therefore, which 
ought to be annexed to the words loill and desire are es- 
sentially different.' 

It will be proper, however, to state Mr. Locke's ob- 
servations in his own words : — " He that shall turn his 
thoughts inwards upon what passes in his own mind when 
he icills, shall see that the v^'ill or power of volition is 
conversant about nothing but that particular determination 
22 



254 FREE AGENCY. 

of the mind whereby, barely by a thought, the mind en- 
deavours to give rise, continuation, or stop to any action 
which it takes to be in its power. This, well considered, 
plainly shows, that the will is perfectly distinguished from 
desire, which, in the very same action, may have a quite 
contrary tendency from that which our wills set us upon. 
A man whom I cannot deny may oblige me to use per- 
suasions to another, which, at the same time I am speak- 
ing, I may wish not to prevail on him. In this case, it is 
plain the will and desire run counter. I icill the action 
that tends one way, whilst my desire tends another, and 
that the direct contrary. A man who, by a violent fit of 
gout in his limbs, finds a doziness in his head, or a want 
of appetite in his stomach, removed, desires to be eased 
too of the pain of his feet or hands (for wherever there is 
pain there is a desire to be rid of it) ; though yet, while 
he apprehends that the removal of the pain may translate 
the noxious humors to a more vital part, his icill is never 
determined to any one action that may serve to remove 
this pain. Whence it is evident that desiring and willing 
are two distinct acts of the mind ; and, consequently, that 
the will, which is but the power of volition, is much more 
distinct from desire." * 

It is surprising how little this important passage has been 
attended to by Locke's successors. 

Dr. Johnson on this, as on every other occasion where 
logical precision of ideas is called for in a definition, is 
strangely indistinct and inconsistent. fVill he defines to 
be " that power by which we desire and purpose " ; and 
he gives as its synonyme the scholastic word velleity. On 
turning to the article velleity, we are told that "it is the 
school term used to signify the lowest degree of desire''^; 
in illustration of which Dr. South is quoted, according to 
whom " the wishing of a thing is not properly the loilling 
it, but it is that which is called by the schools an imperfect 
velleity, and imports no more than an idle, inoperative 
complacency in and desire of the end, without any con- 
sideration of the means." 

4. Instead of speaking (according to common phrase- 

, * Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. xxi. § 30. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 255 

ology) of the injluence of motives on the will, it would be 
much more correct to speak of the influence of motives 
on the agent. We are apt to forget what the will is, 
and to consider it as something inanimate and passive, the 
state of which can be ahered only by the action of some 
external cause. The habitual use of the metaphorical 
word motives, to denote the intentions or purposes which 
accompany our voluntary actions, or, in other words, the 
ends which we have in view in the exercise of the power 
intrusted to us, has a strong tendency to confirm us in this 
error, by leading us to assimilate in fancy the volition of a 
mind to the motion of a body, and the circumstances 
which give rise to this volition to the vis ^notrix by which 
the motion is produced. 

It is probably in order to facilitate the reception of his 
favorite scheme of necessity that Hobbes was led to sub- 
stitute, instead of the old division of our faculties into the 
powers of the understanding and those of the will, a new 
division of his own, in which the name of cognitive powers 
was given to the former, and that of motive powers to the 
latter. To familiarize the ears of superficial readers to 
this phraseology was of itself one great step towards se- 
curing their suffrages against the supposition of man's free 
agency. To say that the will is determined by motive 
powers, is to employ a language which virtually implies a 
recognition of the very point in dispute. Accordingly, 
Mr. Belsham is at pains to keep the metaphorical origin of 
the word motive in the view of his readers, by prefixing to 
his argument in favor of the scheme of necessity the fol- 
lowing definition : — '■'■Motive, in this discussion, is to be 
understood in its most extensive sense. It expresses 
whatever moves or influences the mind in its choice." * 

5. According to Mr. Locke, the ideas o{ liberty and of 
power are very nearly the same. "Every one," he ob- 
serves, " finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, con- 
tinue or put an end to, several actions in hiniself. From 
the consideration of the extent of this power of the mind 
over the actions of the man, which every one finds in him- 
self, arise the ideas of liberty and necessity." And a 

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, Chap. IX. Sect. i. 



256 FREE AGENCY. 

few sentences afterwards : — " The idea of liberty is the 
idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particu- 
lar action, according to the determination or thought of 
the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other. 
Where either of them is not in the power of the agent, to 
be produced by him according to his volition, there he is 
not at liberty but under necessity." * That these defini- 
tions are not perfectly correct will appear hereafter. They 
approach, indeed, very nearly to the definitions of liberty 
and necessity given by Hobbes, Collins, and Edwards ; 
whereas Locke, in order to do justice to his own decided 
opinion on the subject, ought to have included also in his 
idea of liberty a poioer over the determinations of his will. 
It is owing in a great measure to this close connection 
between the ideas o? free-ivill and of jjower, and to the 
pleasure with which the consciousness of poiver is always 
accompanied, that we feel so painful a mortification in 
perusing those systems in which our free agency is called 
in question. Dr. Priesdey himself, as well as his great 
oracle. Dr. Hartley, has acknowledged, that " he was not 
a ready convert to the doctrine of necessity, and that he 
gave up his liberty with great reluctance." f But whence 
this reluctance to embrace a doctrine so " great and glori- 
ous," but from its repugnance to the natural feelings and 
natural wishes of the human mind .'' 



Section II. 

REVIEW OF THE ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 

I. Concessions by the Advocates for Free-will.] Be- 
fore proceeding to an examination of this question, I shall 
premise a few principles in which both parties are agreed, 
or which at least appear to me to be concessions which 
the advocates for free-will may safely make to their an- 
tagonists without any injury to their general argument. 

1. Every action is performed with some view, or, in 

* Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. xxi. 
§§7,8. 
t Doctrine of Philosophical Keccssity ILlvstrated, Preface. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 257 

Other words, is performed from some motive. Dr. Reid, 
indeed, denies this with zeal, but I am doubtful if he has 
strengthened his cause by doing so ; * for he confesses 
that the actions which are performed without motives are 
perfectly trifling and insignificant, and not such as lead to 
any general conclusion concerning the merit or demerit of 
moral agents. I should therefore rather be disposed to 
yield this point than to dispute a proposition not materially 
connected with the question at issue. One thing is clear 
and indisputable, that it is only in so far as a man acts 
from motives or intentions, that he is entitled to the char- 
acter of a rational being. 

2. The merit of an action depends entirely on the mo- 
tive from which it was performed. Dr. Reid remarks, 
that some necessitarians have triumphed in this principle 
as the very hinge of the controversy, whereas the truth is, 
that no reasonable advocate for free-will ever called it in 
question. 

IT. General Statement of the Jlrgument for JSTecessity.'] 
So far, I think, we are justified in going. The great 
question is, Hoic do motives influence or determine the 
will .'* In answer to this question the necessitarians reason 
as follows : — 

Every change in nature, we are told, implies the opera- 
tion of a cause ; and this maxim, it is pretended, holds 
not only with respect to inanimate matter, but with respect 
to the changes which take place in the state of a mind. 
Every volition, therefore, must have been produced by a 
motive with which it is as necessarily connected as any 
other effect with its cause ; and when different motives 
are presented to the mind at the same time, the will yields 
to the strongest, as necessarily as a body urged by two 
contrary forces moves in the direction of that which is 
most powerful. 

The foregoing argument goes to prove, that all human 
actions are as necessarily produced by motives as the 
going of a clock is necessarily produced by the weights, 
and that no human action could have been otherwise than 



Essays on the Active Powers^ Essay IV. Chap. iv. 

22* 



258 FREE AGENCY. 

it really was. Nay, it applies also in full force to the 
Deity, and indeed to all intelligent beings whatever ; for 
it is not founded on any thing peculiar to the human mind, 
but on the impossibility of free agency ; and, of conse- 
quence, it leads to this general conclusion, that no event 
in the universe could have happened otherwise than it did. 

Accordingly, Dr. Clarke has been at much pains to 
prove that the Deity must be a free agent, and there- 
fore that free agency is not impossible ; from which he 
infers that there must be some flaw in the reasonings just 
stated to prove that man is a necessary agent.* Jf this 
reasoning of Clarke's be admitted as conclusive, where is 
the absurdity, I would ask, of supposing that God may 
have been pleased to place man in a state of moral disci- 
pline, by imparting to him a freedom of choice between 
good and evil, in like manner as he has imparted to him 
various other faculties and powers essentially different from 
any thing we observe in the lower animals ? Is not the 
contrary assertion a presumptuous attempt to set limits to 
the Divine Omnipotence ? 

Among the various forms which religious enthusiasm 
assumes, there is a certain prostration of the mind, which, 
under the specious disguise of a deep humility, aims at 
exalting the Divine perfections by annihilating all the 
powers which belong to human nature. " Nothing is more 
usual for fervent devotion," says Sir James Mackintosh, 
in speaking of some theories current among the Hin- 
doos, " than to dwell so long and so warmly on the 
meanness and worthlessness of created things, and on the 
all-sufficiency of the Supreme Being, that it slides insen- 
sibly from comparative to absolute language, and, in the 
eagerness of its zeal to magnify the Deity, seems to anni- 
hilate every thing else." 

This excellent observation may serve to account for 
the zeal displayed by many devout men in favor of the 
scheme of necessity. " We have nothing," they frequently 
and justly remind us, " but what we have received." But 
the question here is simply a matter of fact, whether we 
have or have not received from God the gift of free-will ; 

* Demonstration of the Being and Mtrihutes of God, Prop. XII. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 259 

and the only argument, it must be remembered, which 
they have yet been able to advance for the negative 
proposition is, that this gift was impossible even for the 
power of God ; — an argument, we may remark, which not 
only annihilates the power of man, but annihilates that of 
God also, and subjects him, as well as all his creatures, 
to the control of causes which he is unable to resist. So 
completely does this scheme defeat the pious views in 
which it has sometimes originated. 

I say sometimes ; for this very argument against the 
liberty of the will is employed by Spinoza, according to 
whom the free agency of man involves the absurd supposi- 
tion of an imperium in imperio in the universe.* Voltaire, 
too, — who in his latter days, abandoning those principles 
for which he had before, when in the full vigor of his fac- 
ulties, so zealously and eloquently contended, seems to 
have become a convert to the scheme of fatalism, — has on 
one occasion had recourse to an argument against man's 
free agency similar in substance to what is advanced by 
Spinoza in the passage now referred to. " En efFet, il 
seroit bien singuiier que toute la nature, tons les astres 
obeissent a. des loix eternelles, et qu'il y eut un petit 
animal haut de cinq pieds, qui en mepris de ces lois put 
agir toujours comme il lui plairoit au seul gre de son ca- 
price." f " Singular ! " exclaims Dr. Beattie, after quot- 
ing the preceding sentence ; " ay, singular indeed, — but 
not a whit more singular than that this same animal of five 
feet should perceive, and think, and read, and write, and 
speak ; attributes which no astronomer of my acquaint- 
ance has ever supposed to belong to the planets, notwith- 
standing their brilliant appearance and stupendous magni- 
tude." | The reply is quite as good as the argument is 
entitled to.§ 

* Traciat. Polit., Cap. II. Sect. vi. 

t Le PkUosophe Ignorant, XIII. " Indeed, it would be very singular 
that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there 
should be a little animal, five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, 
could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice." 

X Essay on Truth, Part II. Chap. ii. Sect. iii. 

§ In reply to the general argument for necessity founded on the the- 
ory of causation, I copy a few paragraphs from Tappan's Review of Ed- 
wards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will. — " Let us look at the con- 
nection of cause and phenomena a little more particularly. What is 



260 FREE AGENCY. 

III. Hohhes's Scheme of J^ecessity.] According to 
the view of the subject that has now been taken, we are 
led to conclude that man possesses a power over the de- 
terminations of his will ; — and this is precisely the scheme 
of what is commonly called free-will, in opposition to that 
of necessity. 

But this power over the determinations of the will has 
been represented by some philosophers as an absurdity 
and impossibility. Liberty, we are told, consists only in 

cause? It is tliat which is the ground of the possible and actual exist- 
ence of phenomena. How is cause known? By the phenomena. Is 
cause visible? No; whatever is seen is phenomenal. We observe 
phenomena, and by the law of our intelligence we assign them to cause. 
But how do we conceive of cause as producing phenomena .'' B}- tinisiis, 
an effort, or energy. Is this nisus itself a phenomenon .' It is when it 
is observed. Is it always observed ? It is not. The nisus of gravita- 
tion we do not observe ; we observe merely the facts of gravitation. 
The nisus of heat to consume we do not observe ; we observe merely 
the facts of combustion. Where, then, do we observe this nisus? Only 
in will. Really, volition is the nisus or effort of that cause which we 
call icill. When 1 wish to do any thing, I make an effort, a nisus, to do 
it; I make an effort to raise my arm, and I raise it. This effort is sim- 
ply the volition. I make an effort to lift a weight with my hand; this 
effort is simply the volition to lift it, and immediately antecedent to this 
effort I recognize only my will, or really only myself. This effort, this 
nisus, this volition, — whatever we call it, — is in the will itself, and it 
becomes a phenomenon to us because ine are causes that know ourselves. 
Every nisus, or effort, or volition, which we may make, is in our con- 
sciousness : causes which are not self-conscious, of course, do not reveal 
this wJsus to themselves ; and they cannot reveal it to us because it is in 
the very bosom of the cause itself. What we observe in relation to all 
causes not ourselves, whether they be self-conscious or not, is not the 
nisus, but the sequents of the nisus. Thus in men we do not observe 
the volition or nisus in their wills, but the phenomena which form the 
sequents of the nisus. And in physical causes, we do not observe the 
nisus of these causes, but only the phenomena which form the sequents 
ofthlsnisus. But when each one comes to himself, it is different. He 
penetrates himself, — knows himself He is himself the cause ; he himself 
makes the nisus, and is conscious of it; and this nisus to him becomes 
an effect, a phenomenon, — the first phenomenon by which he reveals 
himself, but a phenomenon by which he reveals himself only to himself. 
It is by the sequents of this nisus, the effects produced in the external 
visible world, that he reveals himself to others." — pp. 190-192. 

That our particular volitions are the effects of the general power of 
willing, and not of external motives, is plain enough. But the determi- 
nation of the general power of willing to put forth this or that particular 
volition, — is not this the effect of some cause .'' and if so, of what cause .' 
Let us hear Mr. Tappan again : — "Does the objector allege, as a pal- 
pable absurdity, that there is, after all, nothing to account for the par- 
ticular determination .•" I answer, that the particular determination is 
accounted for in the very quality or attribute of the cause. In the case 
of a physical cause, the particular determination is accounted for in the 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITr. 261 

a power to act as we loill ; and it is impossible to conceive 
in any being a greater liberty than this. Hence it follows, 
that liberty does not extend to the determinations of the 
will^ but only to the actions consequent iipon its determina- 
tions. To say that we have power to will such an action, 
is to say that we may will it if we will. This supposes 
the will to be determined by a prior will ; and for the 
same reason, that will must be determined by a will prior 
to it, and so on in an infinite series of wills, which is ab- 

quality of the cause, which quality is to be necessarily correlated to the 
object. In the case of will, the particular determination is accounted 
for in the quality of the cause, which quality is to have the power to 
make the particular determination without being necessarily correlated 
to the object. A physical cause is a cause fixed, determined, and 
necessitated. The will is a cause contingent and free. A physical 
cause is a cause instrumental of a first cause; — the will is first cause 
itself. The infinite^ will is the first cause inhabiting eternity, filling 
immensity, and unlimited in its energy. The human will is first cause 
appearing in time, confined to place, and finite in its energy ; but it is 
the same in kind, because made in the likeness of the infinite will. As 
first cause it is self-moved ; it makes its nisus of itself, and of itself it 
forbears to make it; and within the sphere of its activity, and in rela- 
tion to its objects, it has the power of selecting, by a mere arbitrary act, 
any particular object. It is a cause all whose acts, as well as any par- 
ticular act, considered as phenomenon demanding a cause, are account- 
ed for in itself alone." — pp. 222, 223. 

" Acts of the will may be conceived of as analogous to intuitive or 
first truths. First truths require no demonstration ; they admit of none ; 
they form the basis of all demonstration. Acts of the will are first 
movements of frimanj causes, and as such neither require nor admit of 
antecedent causes, to explain their action. Will is the source and basis 
of all other cause. It explains all other cause, but in itself admits of no 
explanation. It presents the primary and all-comprehending fact of 
power. In God, will is infinite, primary cause, and uncreated : in man 
it is finite, primary cause, constituted by God's creative act, but not 
necessitated; for if necessitated it would not be will, — it would not 
be power after the likeness of the Divine power ; it would be mere 
physical or/secondary cause, and comprehended in the chain of natural 
antecedents and sequents." — p. 228. 

Jouftroy says in reference to this point : — " The law, that every mo- 
tive in material bodies is proportioned to the moving force which pro- 
duced it, supposes a fact ; namely, the inertia of matter. To apply 
this law to the relation which subsists between the resolutions of my 
will, and the motives which act upon it, is to suppose that my being, — 
that I, myself, — am not a cause ; for a cause is something which pro- 
duces an act by its own proper power. That which is inert is not a 
cause ; it may receive and transmit an impulse, but it cannot originate 
it. Are we, or are we not, a cause? Have we, or have we not, a 
•power in ourselves of producing certain acts .■" It would seem necessary 
for us to decide this question, before we can rightly apply the law of 
external phenomena to internal operations." — Introduction to Ethics, 
Lecture IV. — Ed. 



262 FREE AGENCY. 

surd. To act freely, therefore, can mean nothing more 
than to act voluntarily ; and this is all the liberty that can 
be conceived in man or in any other being. 

Agreeably to this reasoning, Hobbes defines a free agent 
to be "he that can do if he will and forbear if he will." 
The same definition has been adopted by Leibnitz, by 
Collins, by Gravesande, by Edwards, by Bonnet, and by 
all later necessitarians. 

Dr. Priestley ascribes this peculiar notion of free-will 
to Hobbes as its author ; * but it is in fact of much older 
date, even among modern metaphysicians, coinciding ex- 
actly with the 'doctrine of those scholastic divines who 
contended for the liberty of spontaneity, in opposition to 
the liberty of indifference, h is, however, to Hobbes 
that the partisans of this opinion are indebted for the 
happiest and most popular illustration of it that has yet 
been given. "I conceive," says he, "liberty to be 
rightly defined, the absence of all the impediments to action 
that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality 
of the agent. As, for example, the w^ater is said to de- 
scend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel 
of the river, because there is no impediment that way ; 
but not. across, because the banks are impediments. And 
though water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants 
the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or power, because 
the impediment is in the nature of the water, and intrin- 
sical. So also we say, he that is tied w^ants the liberty to 
go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his bands ; 
whereas we say not so of him who is sick or lame, be- 
cause the impediment is in himself." f 

* "The doctrine of philosophical necessity is in reality a modern 
thing ; not older, I believe, than Mr. Hobbes. Of the Calvinists, I be- 
liev^e Mr. Jonathan Edwards to be the first. Others have follo%ved his 
steps, especially Mr. Toplady. But the inconsistency of his scheme 
%vith what is properly Calvinism appears by his dropping several of the 
essential parts of that system, and his silence with respect to others. 
And when the doctrine of necessity shall be thoroughly understood and 
well considered by Calvinists, it will be found to militate against almost 
all their peculiar tenets." — Philosophical jXecessity Illustrated, Sect. 
XIII. 

t See his treatise Of Liberty and A'ecessity, under this head, My 
Opinion about Liberty and JS'ecessity. Also, Questions concerning Lib- 
erty, J\''ecessity, and Chance clearly stated and debated beticeen Dr. Bram- 
hall and Thomas Hobbes. 



ARGUMENT TOR NECESSITY. 263 

In order to judge how far the reasoning of Hobbes is 
in this instance satisfactory, it is necessary to attend to the 
various significations of the word liberty ; for the sense in 
which Hobbes has defined it is only one of its accepta- 
tions, and by no means the sense in which it ought to be 
employed in this controversy. 

1. Liberty is opposed to confinement of the body by 
superior force, as when a person is shut up in a prison. 
It is in this sense that Hobbes uses the word ; for he tells 
us that liberty consists only in a power to act as we will. 
And if the word had no other acceptation, the objection 
now stated would be a valid one ; for as the will cannot be 
confined by any external force, neither can we with pro- 
priety ascribe to the will that species of liberty which is 
opposed to such confinement.* 

* "This is called the liberty from co-action or violence, the liberty of 
spontaneity, — spontaneity, to eKovawv. In the present question,*this 
species of liberty ought to be thrown altogether out of account : it is 
admitted by all parties ; is common equally to brutes and men ; is not a 
peculiar quality of the will ; and is, in fact, essential to it, for the will 
cannot possibly be forced. The greatest spontaneity is, in fact, the 
greatest necessity. Thus, a hungry horse, who turns of necessity to 
food, is said, on this definition of liberty, to do so with freedom, because 
he does so spontaneously; and, in general, the desire of happiness, 
which is the most necessary tendency, will, on this application of the 
term, be the most free. 

" I may observe, that, among others, the definition of liberty, given 
by the celebrated advocate of moral freedom, Dr. Samuel Clarke, is in 
reality only that of the liberty of spontaneity, viz. : — ' The power of 
self-motion or action, which, in all animate agents, is spontaneity, is, in 
moral or rational agents, what we properly call liberty.' Fifth Reply to 
Leibnitz, §§ 1-20, and First Jinswer to the Gentleman of Cambridge. 

This self-motion, absolutely considered, is itself necessary To 

live is to act, and as man is not free to live or not to live, so neither, 
absolutely speaking, is he free to act or not to act. As he lives, he is 
necessarily determined to act or energize, — to think and will; and all 
the liberty to which he can pretend is to choose between this mode of 
action and that. In scholastic language, man cannot have the liberty of 
exercise, though he may have the liberty o^ specification. The root of his 
freedom is thus necessity. Nay, we cannot conceive otherwise even 
of the Deity. As we must think him as necessarily existent, and ne- 
cessarily living, so we must think him as necessarily active. Such are 
the conditions of human thought. It is thus sufficiently manifest that 
Dr. Clarke's inference of the fact of moral liberty, from the conditions 
of self-activity, is incompetent. And when he says, ' The true definition 
of liberty is the power to act,' he should have recollected that this power 
is, on his own hypothesis, absolutely fatal, if it cannot but act. See his 
Remarks on Collins, pp. 15, 20, 27." 

I copy the above from two notes of Sir W. Hamilton, in his edition of 
Reid's Works. On the Active Pozi?ers, Essay IV. Chap. i. and ii. — Ed. 



264 FREE AGENCY. 

2. Liberty is opposed to the restraints on human con- 
duct arising from law and government ; as when we say, 
that, by entering into a pohtical society, a man gives up 
part of his natural liberty. In this sense liberty undoubt- 
edly extends to the determinations of the will ; and the 
very obligations which are opposed to it proceed on the 
supposition that the will is free. The establishment of 
law does not abridge this freedom, but, on the contrary, 
it takes for granted that we have it in our power to obey 
or to transgress ; proposing to us, on the one hand, the 
motives of duty and of interest, and setting before us, on 
the other, the consequences of wilful transgression. 

3. Liberty is opposed to necessity ; and it is in this 
sense the word is employed, when we say that man is a 
free and accountable being, and that the connection be- 
tween motives and actions is not a necessary connection, 
like that between cause and effect. This species of lib- 
erty has been called by some moral liberty. 

That there is nothing inconceivable in this idea' ap- 
pears, I hope, sufficiently from what has been already said. 
And indeed it is so far from being a metaphysical refine- 
ment or subtilty, that the common-sense of mankind pro- 
nounces men to be accountable for their conduct only in 
so far as they are understood to be morally free. Whence 
is it that we consider the pain of the rack as an elleviation 
of the falsehoods extorted from the criminal ? Plainly 
because the motives presented to him are supposed to be 
such as no ordinary degree of self-command is able to 
resist. And if we were only satisfied that these motives 
were perfectly irresistible, we would not ascribe to him 
any guilt at all. 

As an additional confirmation of Hobbes's doctrine, it 
has been urged that human laws require no more to con- 
stitute a crime but that it be voluntary ; and hence it has 
been inferred, that the criminality consists in the determi- 
nation of the will, whether that determination be free or 
necessary. 

The case just referred to affords a sufficient refutation 
of this argument. The confession of the criminal is surely 
voluntary^ in the strict acceptation of that term ; and yet 
we consider his guilt as alleviated in the same proportion 
in which we suppose his moral liberty to be abridged. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 265 

It Is true that in most cases human laws require no more 
to constitute a crime than that it be voluntary ; because, 
in general, motives are placed beyond the cognizance of 
earthly tribunals. But, in a moral vieio^ merit and de- 
merit suppose not only actions to be voluntary, but the 
agent to be possessed of moral liberty. And even earthly 
tribunals judge on the same principle, wherever it can be 
made to appear that the person accused was deprived of 
the power of self-government by insanity, or by some ac- 
cidental paroxysm of passion. 

I shall mention, in this connection, only one other argu- 
ment in favor of the scheme of necessity ; and I have re- 
served for it the last place, as it has been proposed with 
all the confidence of mathematical demonstration by a 
writer of no less note than Mr. Belsham. It is in the 
form of a reductio ad absurdum ; and its more immediate 
object is to expose to ridicule the consequences which 
necessarily flow from the doctrine of free-will. 

The argument is this : — " According to the hypothesis 
of free-will, the essence of virtue and vice consists in 
liberty ; for example, benevolence without liberty is no 
virtue : malignity without liberty is no vice. Both are 
equally in a neutral state. Add a portion of liberty to 
both, benevolence instantly becomes an eminent virtue, 
and malignity an odious vice. That is, if to equals 

YOU ADD EQUALS, THE WHOLES WILL BE UNEQUAL ; 

than M'hich nothing can be more absurd." * 

On this reasoning, to which it would be unjust to deny 
the merit of complete originality, I have no comment to 
offer. I have quoted it chiefly as a specimen of the logi- 
cal and mathematical skill of the present advocates for the 
doctrine of philosophical necessity. In this point of view, 
it forms an amusing contrast to the lofty pretensions of a 
sect which prides itself, not only on its superiority to 
vulgar prejudices, but on its sagacity in detecting a fraud 
so successfully practised on the rest of mankind by the 
Author of their moral constitution. 

IV. Argument of Leibnitz for JYecessity.'] It is well 

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Chap. IX. Sect. t. 
23 



266 FREE AGENCY. 

known to all who have any acquaintance with the history 
of modern philosophy, that one of the fundamental princi- 
ples of the Leibnitzian system is, that " nothing exists 
without a sujficient reason why it should be so, and not 
otherwise." Of this principle the following succinct ac- 
count is given by Leibnitz himself, in his controversial 
correspondence with Dr. Clarke : — " The great founda- 
tion of mathematics is the principle of contradiction or 
identity ; that is, that a proposition cannot be true and 
false at the same time. But in order to proceed from 
mathematics to natural philosophy, another principle is 
requisite, (as I have observed in my Theodicy.)) I mean 
the principle of the sufficient reason ; or, in other words, 
that nothing happens without a reason why it should be so 
rather than otherwise. And accordingly, Archimedes 
was obliged, in his book De .Mquilihrio., to take for grant- 
ed, that, if there be a balance in which everything is alike 
on both sides, and if equal weights are hung on the two 
ends of that balance, the whole will be at rest. It is be- 
cause no reason can be given why one side should weigh 
down rather than the other. Now by this single principle 
of the sufficient reason may be demonstrated the being of 
a God, and all the other parts of metaphysics or natural 
theology ; and even in some measure those physical truths 
that are independent upon mathematics, such as the dy- 
namical principles, or the principles of force." * 

Some of the inferences deduced by Leibnitz from this 
almost gratuitous assumption are so paradoxical, that one 
cannot help wondering he was not staggered about its cer- 
tainty. Not only was he led to conclude that the mind is 
necessarily determined in all its elections by the greatest 
apparent good, insomuch that it would be impossible for 
it to make a choice between two things perfectly alike ; 
but he had the boldness to extend this conclusion to the 
Deity, and to assert, that two things perfectly alike could 
not have been produced even by Divine power. It was 
upon this ground that he rejected a vacuum^ because all 
the parts of it would be perfectly like to each other ; and 

* Collection of Papers ichich passed between Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. 
Clarke, Leibnitz's Second Paper. For a full statement of Leibnitz's 
views on this and kindred questions, see his Essais de Tk6odic6e. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 267 

that he also rejected the supposition of atoms^ or similar 
particles of matter, ^nd ascribed to each particle a monad, 
or active principle^ bj' which it is discriminated from 
every other particle. The application of his principle, 
however, on which he evidently valued himself the most, 
was that to which I have already alluded, — the demon- 
strative evidence with which he conceived it to establish 
the impossibility of free agency, not only in man, but in 
any other intelligent being. 

Let us examine, therefore, Leibnitz's principle as ap- 
plicable to the determinations of the will, and consider 
what it implies, and how far it is agreeable to fact. And 
for this purpose it is necessary to attend to the various 
senses in which it maybe understood. 

1. When it is said, that for every voluntary action there 
must have been a sufficient reason, the proposition may 
be understood merely to imply that every such action 
must have had a cause. And we may remark by the 
way, that this is the only interpretation of which the prop- 
osition admits, if the word reason be used in the same 
sense in which alone Leibnitz's maxim is applicable to 
inanimate matter. But in this sense of the proposition it 
does not at all affect the question about liberty and neces- 
sity ; for it only implies that the action is an effect, which 
either proceeded from the free-will of the agent (in which 
case he may justly be said to be the cause of the effect), 
or which did not proceed from his free-will (in which case 
it must ultimately be referred to some otJter cause). 

2. The principle of the sufficient reason, when applied 
to our voluntary actions, may be understood to imply, that 
the will is necessarily determined by the greatest apparent 
good. As this proposition is not peculiar to the system 
of Leibnitz, it may be proper to state it more fully. 

The circumstances of our external situation, it has been 
said, and the state of our appetites, desires, &c., at any 
particular time, evidently do not depend on us. Suppose, 
then, that I am under the influence of any two active 
principles which urge me in different directions, and that I 
deliberate which of them I am to obey. The conclusion 
my understanding forms on this subject does not depend 
on me, and this conclusion necessarily determines my will ; 



268 FREE AGENCY. 

for it is impossible for a man not to do what appears to 
him to be, on the whole, the best and^ most eligible thing 
at the moment. My will, therefore, in every case, de- 
pends as little on myself as the conclusion of my under- 
standing when I give my assent to a mathematical demon- 
stration. 

The flaw of this reasoning, I apprehend, lies in that 
step in w'hich it is affirmed that the will is pecessarily 
determined by what appears to us to be best and most 
eligible at the moment ; — and the only circumstance 
which gives the proposition the smallest degree of plausi- 
bility is the ambiguity of the language in which it is stated. 
For it may either imply that our volitions are necessarily 
agreeable to what we ivill at the time ; in which case we 
only assert an identical proposition ; or that the will is 
necessarily determined by what appears to us to be morally 
best and really most eligible at the time ; in which case 
we assert what is contrary to fact. 

3. The meaning of the proposition now under consid- 
eration may be understood to be this, — that for every ac- 
tion there must be a motive. 

I have already said that in this sense I am disposed to 
admit the maxim. Dr. Reid, indeed, has very confidently 
maintained the negative ; but I do not think, (as I formerly 
observed,) that by doing so he has strengthened his cause ; 
for he confesses that the actions which are performed with- 
out motives are perfectly trifling and insignificant : nay, 
he acknowledges that the merit of an action depends en- 
tirely on the motive from which it is performed. 

But although we grant this general proposition, it cer- 
tainly does not follow from it that man is a necessary 
agent. The question is not concerning the iiifliience of 
motives, but concerning the nature of that influence. The 
advocates for necessity represent it as the influence of a 
cause in producing its efi^ect. The advocates for liberty 
acknowledge that the motive is the occasion of acting, or 
the reason for acting ; but contend that it is so far from 
being the efficient cause of it that it supposes the efficiency 
to exist elsewhere, namely, in the mind of the agent. Be- 
tween these two opinions there is an essential distinction. 
The one represents man merely as a passive instrument. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 269 

According to the other, he is really an agent, and the sole 
author of his own actions. He acts, indeed, from motives, 
but he has the power of choice among different ones. 
When he acts from a particular motive, it is not because 
this motive is stronger than others, but because he willed 
to act in this way. Indeed, it may be questioned if the 
word strength conveys any idea when applied to motives. 
It is obviously an analogical or metaphorical expression, 
borrowed from a class of phenomena essentially different.* 

* " It is the strongest motive, say they, which determines the will. 
What is this strongest motive, I ask, and how do you measure the com- 
parative force of motives ? Is that the strongest motive, according to 
your idea, which determines the volition ? If this is so, you are argu- 
ing in a circle ; and instead of showing that it is the strongest motive 
which decides the will, you are merely saying that, as the determina- 
tion of the will is in conformity with such or such a motive, therefore 
this motive is strongest. 

"But, if we cannot judge from effect, we must find some common 
measure by which to decide. Let us inquire, then, what this measure 
can be. 

"Of two impulses, manifestly unequal, it would be easy to determine 
the stronger ; a vehement desire is distinguishable in our consciousness 
from one not so. And thus, merely from their vivacity and fervor, we 
may often recognize the stronger from the weaker passion. There is, 
then, if you choose to say so, a common measure between different im- 
pulses of our sensitive nature, which are peculiarly distinguished as 
emotions. On the other hand, of different courses of conduct which 
reason and self-interest bring into contrast, I may see that one is much 
more advantageous than another. There is, then, if you please, a means 
of comparing together different suggestions of self-interest: the sugges- 
tion which promises the most for my interest should have the most 
power over me. In the same way, among different duties which may 
present themselves to my judgment, there may be one which appears 
more obligatory than another ; for there are duties of different degrees 
of importance, and in many cases I must sacrifice the less to the greater. 
I perceive, then, that, strictly speaking, there is a possibility of com- 
paring together the relative force of different motives originating from 
duty, and of different motives suggested by self-interest, or, finally, of 
different desires striving within me at a given moment. But between 
a desire on the one hand, and a conception of interest or of duty on the 
other, where, I ask, can you find a standard of comparison .'' If I assume 
passion as the measure, then, evidently, passion will appear the stronger 
motive ; but if, on the other hand, I assume interest or duty -as the meas- 
ure, then desire becomes nothing, and duty or interest all in all. It de- 
pends, then, wholly upon the measure of comparison which I adopt, 
whether this or the other motive is strongest; which proves that there 
is no common measure of comparison to be applied at all times to these 
different kinds of motives, when we would estimate their relative force. 

" Thus, in truth, in almost every case, to say that we yield to the 
strongest motive is to say what has no meaning; for in most cases it is 
impossible to determine the strongest motive. If I will to be prudent, I 

23* 



270 FREE AGENCY. 

V. Scheme of J\^ecessity advocated by Collins and 
Edwards.] The ablest defenders of free-will have con- 
tended that the doctrine of necessity, when pushed to its 
logical consequences, must ultimately terminate in Spino- 
zism. It seems to have been the great aim of Collins to 
vindicate his favorite scheme from this reproach, and to 
retaliate upon the partisans of free-will the charges of 
favoring atheism and immorality. In proof of this, 1 have 
only to quote the account given by the author himself of 
the plan of his work. 

" Too much care cannot be taken to prevent being mis- 
understood and prejudged in handling questions of such 
nice speculation as those of liberty and necessity ; and 
therefore, though I might in justice expect to be read 
before any judgment be passed on me, I think it proper 
to premise the following observations : — 

" First, though I deny liberty m a certain meaning of 
that word, yet I contend for liberty, as it signifies a power 
in man to do as he wills or pleases. 

" Secondly, when I affirm necessity, I contend only for 
moral necessity, meaning thereby that man, who is an intel- 
ligent and sensible being, is determined by his reason and 
his senses ; and I deny man to be subject to such necessi- 
ty as is in clocks, watches, and such other beings, which, 
for want of sensation and intelligence, are subject to an 
absolute, physical, or mechanical necessity. 

*■' Thirdly, I have undertaken to show that the notions 
I advance are so far from being inconsistent with, that 

follow the motive of self interest; if I will to be virtuous, I follow the 
motive of duty ; if I will to be neither prudent nor virtuous, I follow 
passion ; and in proportion as I yield to passion, to enlightened interest, 
or to duty, does the merit of my conduct vary. And here is a marvel for 
the advocate of necessity, and something which, in the sincerity of his 
conviction, he should ponder well. I, who am not free, — who, what- 
ever resolution I have taken, have yet been fatally determined to take 
it by the strongest motive, — I feel that I am responsible for this resolu- 
tion ; and others, too, regard me as responsible; so that, according as I 
have been impelled to this or that act, do I believe myself to have merit 
or demerit, and pass sentence on myself as reasonable or unreasonable, 
prudent or foolish ; and, in a word, apply to myself, though I have 
yielded necessarily to the strongest motive, certain expressions and 
names, all implying most decisively and forcibly that I was free to yield 
or resist, to take at my option this or that course, and, consequently, 
that this so-called strongest motive did not, after all, determine the 
act." — Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lect. IV, 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 271 

they are the sole foundations of, morality and laws, and of 
rewards and punishments in society ; and that the notions 
I explode are subversive of them."* 

In the prosecution of his argument on this question, 
Collins endeavours to show that man is a necessary agent : 
— 1. From experience. By experience he means our own 
consciousness that we are necessary agents. 2. From 
the impossibility of liberty. 3. From the consideration 
of the Divine prescience. 4. From the nature and use 
of rewards and punishments. And, 5. From the nature 
of morality. 

In this view of the subject, and indeed in the very selec- 
tion of his premises, it is remarkable how completely 
Collins has anticipated Dr. Jonathan Edwards, the most 
celebrated and indisputably the ablest champion, in later 
times, of the scheme of necessity. The coincidence is 
so perfect, that the outline given by the former of the plan 
of his work might have served with equal propriety as a 
preface to that of the latter. From the above-mentioned 
summary of the argument, and still more from the whole 
tenor of the Philosophical Inquiry, it is evident that Col- 
lins (one of the most obnoxious writers of his day to divines 
of all denominations) was not less solicitous than his suc- 
cessor, Edwards, to reconcile his metaphysical notions 
with man's accountableness and moral agency. The 
remarks, accordingly, of Clarke upon Collins's work are 
equally applicable to that of Edwards. It is to be regret- 
ted that they seem never to have fallen into the hands of 
this very acute and candid reasoner.f As for Collins, it 

* Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty, Preface. 

t Remarks upon a Book entitled Jl Philosophical Inquiry concerning 
Human Liberty. Voltaire, who in all probability never read either 
Clarke or Collins, has said that the former replied to the latter only by 
theological reasonings; — "Clarke n'a repondu a Collins qu'en theolo- 
gien." {Quest, sur VE^icyc, Art. Liberie.) Nothing can be more re- 
mote from the truth. The argument of Clarke is wholly metaphysi- 
cal, whereas his antagonist in various instances has attempted, though 
an avowed deist, to wrest to his own purposes the words of Scripture. 

[For a full and elaborate answer to Edwards, see Mr. Tappan's Re- 
tiew, from which a long quotation has already been given, directed 
against one of his leading positions. We give another, on the distinc- 
tion, so much insisted on by Edwards, and essential, indeed, to his 
scheme, between moral and natural inability. 

" Man, they say, is morally unable to do good, and naturally able to 



272 FREE AGENCY. 

is a remarkable circumstance that he attempted no reply 
to this tract of Clarke's, although he lived twelve years 
after its publication. The reasonings contained in it, 
together with those on the same subject in his corre- 
spondence with Leibnitz, and in his Demonstration of the 
Being and Attributes of God, form, in my humble opin- 
ion, the most important, as well as powerful, of all his 
metaphysical arguments. The adversaries with whom he 
had to contend were both of them eminently distinguished 
by ingenuity and subtilty, and he seems to have put forth 

do good, and therefore he can justly be made the subject of command, 
appeal, rebuke, and exhortation. Natural inability, as defined by this 
system, lies in the connection between the volition, considered as an 
antecedent, and the effect required. Thus I am naturally unable to 
walk, when, although I make the volition, my limbs, through weak- 
ness or disease, do not obey. Any defect in the povFers or instrumen- 
talities dependent for activity upon volition, or any impediment which 
volition cannot surmount, constitutes natural inability. According to 
this system, I am not held responsible for any thing which, through 
natural inability, cannot be accomplished, although the volition is made. 
But let us suppose that there is no defect in the powers or instrumen- 
talities dependent for activity upon volition, and no impediment which 
volition cannot surmount, so that there need be only a volition in order 
to have the effect, and then the natural ability is complete : — I will to 
walk, and I walk. Now it is affirmed that a man is fairly responsible 
for the doing of any thing, and can be fairly urged to do it, when, as in 
this case, all that is necessary for the doing of it is a volition, although 
there may be a moral inability to the volition itself. 
■ " Nothing, it seems to me, can be more absurd than this distinction. 
If it be granted to be absurd to urge men to do right when they are con- 
ceived to be totally unable to do right, it is equally so when they are 
conceived to have only a natural ability to do right ; because this natural 
ability is of no avail without a corresponding moral ability. If the voli- 
tion take place, there is indeed nothing to prevent the action; nay, 
' the very willing is the doing of it' : but then the volition, as an effect, 
cannot take place without a cause ; and to acknowledge a moral inability 
is nothing less than to acknowledge that there is no cause to produce 
the required volition. The inability, under both representations, is 
a total inability. In the utter impossibility of a right volition is the 
utter impossibility of any good deed. When we have denied liberty 
in denying a self-determining power, these definitions, in order to make 
out a quasi liberty and ability, are nothing but ingenious folly and plau- 
sible deception. 

" You tell the man, indeed, that he can if he will; and when he replies, 
that on your principles the required volition is impossible, you refer him 
to the common notions of mankind. According to these, you say, a 
man is guilty when he forbears to do right, since nothing is wanting 
to right-doing but a volition, and guilty when he does wrong, because 
he wills to do wrong. According to these common notions, too, a man 
may fairly be persuaded to do right, when nothing is wanting but a will 
to do right. But do we find this distinction of natural and moral ability 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 273 

to the utmost his logical strength, in contending with such 
antagonists. " The liberty or moral agency of man," says 
his friend, Dr. Hoadly, " was a darling point to him. He 
excelled always and showed a superiority to all, whenever 
it came into private discourse or public debate. But he 
never more excelled than when he was pressed with the 
strength Leibnitz was master of; which made him exert 
all his talents to set it once again in a clear light, to guard 
it against the evil of metaphysical obscurities, and to give 
the finishing stroke to a subject which must ever be the 

in the common notions of men ? When nothing is required to the per- 
formance of a deed but a volition, do men conceive of any inability what- 
ever ? Do they not feel that the volition has a metaphysical possibility, 
as well as that the sequent of the volition has a physical possibility ? " 
— pp. 161-165. 

We copy the following passage from Blakey's History of the Phi- 
losophy of Mind, Vol. IV. p. 515, as giving one of the latest European 
estimates of Dr. Edwards's merits as a philosopher: — " Dr. Edwards 
had a peculiarly constituted mind ; — a mind capable of pursuing, with 
incomparable steadiness and clearness, the longest and most intricate 
chain of reasoning ; but a mind, withal, by no means endowed with the 
loftiest powers of logical comprehension. He saw every link in a 
chain of reasoning with a microscopic eye, which, when its focal power 
was changed, made every thing at a distance appear hazy, clouded, and 
ill-defined. He could do one thing as no other man has ever been able 
to do it ; he could reason from given or assumed premises with perspi- 
cuity, neatness, and power, and with an almost superhuman ease and 
correctness ; but he could not embrace a philosophical system as a 
whole, and show its manifold bearings and relations to other branches 
of knowledge. He was an acute, but not a great, philosopher. His 
was a vivid and piercing light, but its illuminating rays, at a certain dis- 
tance, became limited and scattered, and gave to all surrounding objects 
a disturbed and confused appearance. His ratiocination is so perfect of 
its kind, that it assumes the appearance of mechanism; and we feel a 
sort of secret dislike to have all the pegs and wires of an argument 
so minutely and obtrusively placed before us. Edwards has, in fact, 
been denominated a 'reasoning machine'; and the epithet is by no 
means misapplied or extravagant. But as a machine can only do its 
work one uiay, and we cannot humor it, or make its power more 
pliable, so in like manner do we find the intellectual mechanism of 
Edwards unyielding and unmanageable, except in its own peculiar 
fashion." 

With an inconsistency by no means uncommon, Blakey, in his notice 
of Collins, quotes with approbation what Stewart says above of Collins 
as anticipating Edwards in every thing, and afterwards, in his notice of 
Edwards, says of the latter, that " he has stated and illustrated the prin- 
ciple of necessary connection in a manner altogether different from the 
way in which Collins, Priestley, Hume, and others have argued it." 

See, also, an Essaij on the Genius and Writings of Edioards, prefixed 
to the London edition of his works, 1834, by H. Rogers ; and I. Taylor's 
Introduction to his edition of Edwards On the Will.'] 



274 FREE AGENCY. 

foundation of morality in man, and is the ground of the ac- 
countableness of intelligent creatures for all their actions." 

To the arguments of Collins against man's free agency 
some of his followers have added the inconsistency of this 
doctrine with the known effects of education (under which 
phrase they comprehend also the moral effects of all the 
external circumstances in which men are involuntarily 
placed) in forming the characters of individuals. 

The plausibility of this argument, (on which so much 
stress has been laid by Priestley and others) arises en- 
tirely from the mixture of truth which it involves ; or, to 
express myself more correctly, from the evidence and im- 
portance of the fact on which it proceeds, when that fact 
is stated with due limitations. 

That the influence of edvxation, in this comprehensive 
sense of the word, was greatly underrated by our ancestors 
is now universally acknowledged, and it is to Locke's writ- 
ings, more than to any other single cause, that the change 
in public opinion on this head is to be ascribed. On 
various occasions he has expressed himself very strongly 
with respect to the extent of this influence, and has more 
than once intimated his belief, that the great majority of 
men continue through life what early education has made 
them. In making use, however, of this strong language, 
his object (as is evident from the opinions which he has 
avowed in other parts of his works) was only to arrest 
the attention of his readers to the practical lessons he was 
anxious to inculcate ; and not to state a metaphysical /acf 
which was to be literally and rigorously interpreted in the 
controversy about liberty and necessity. The only sound 
and useful moral to be drawn from the spirit of his ob- 
servation is the duty of gratitude to Heaven for all the 
blessings, in respect of education and of external situation, 
which have fallen to our own lot ; the impossibility of 
ascertaining the involuntary misfortunes by which the 
seeming demerits of others may have been in part occa- 
sioned, and in the same propordon diminished ; and the 
consequent obligation upon ourselves to think as charitably 
as possible of their conduct under the most unfavorable 
appearances. The truth of all this I conceive to be im- 
plied in these words of Scripture, — "To whom much 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 275 

is given, of them much will be required "; and, if possible, 
still more explicitly and impressively in the Parable of the 
Talents. 

Is not the use which has been made by necessitarians 
of Locke's Treatise on Ediication, and other books of a 
similar tendency, only one instance more of that disposi- 
tion, so common among metaphysical sciolists, to con- 
ceal from the world their incapacity to add to the stock of 
useful knowledge, by appropriating to themselves the con- 
clusions of their wiser and more sober predecessors, under 
the startling and imposing disguise of universal maxims, 
admitting neither of exception nor restriction ? It is thus 
that Locke's judicious and refined remarks on the asso- 
ciation of ideas have been exaggerated to such an extreme 
by Hartley and Priestley, as to bring among cautious 
inquirers some degree of discredit on one of the most im- 
portant doctrines of modern philosophy. Or, to take 
another case still more in point, it is thus that Locke's 
reflections on the effects of education in modifying the 
intellectual faculties, and (where skilfully conducted) in 
supplying their original defects, have been distorted into 
the puerile paradox of Helvetius, that the mental capacities 
of the whole human race are the same at the moment of 
birth. It is sufficient for me here to throw out these hints, 
which will be found to apply equally to a large proportion 
of other theories started by modern metaphysicians. 

VI. Ground taken by later Advocates of J\'ecessily.'\ 
It is needless to say, that neither Leibnitz nor Collins 
admitted the fairness of the inferences which Clarke con- 
ceived to follow from the scheme of necessity. But 
almost every page in the subsequent history of this con- 
troversy may be regarded as an additional illustration of 
the soundness of Clarke's reasonings, and of the sagacity 
with which he anticipated the fatal err.ors likely to ensue 
from the system which he opposed. 

A very learned and pious disciple of Leibnitz, who 
made his first appearance as an author about thirty years 
after the death of his master, exclaims, — " Thus the 
same chain embraces the physical and moral worlds, binds 
the past to the present, the present to the future, the future 
to eternity. 



276 FREE AGENCY. 

" That wisdom which has ordained the existence of 
this chain has doubtless willed that of every link of which 
it is composed. A Caligula is one of those links, and 
this link is of iron. A Marcus Aurelius is another 
link, and this link is of gold. Both are necessary parts of 
one whole, which could not but exist. Shall God, then, 
be angry at the sight of the iron link ? What absurdity ! 
God esteems this link at its proper value : he sees it in 
its cause, and he approves this cause, for it is good. God 
beholds moral monsters as he beholds physical monsters. 
Happy is the link of gold ! Still more happy if he know 
that he is only fortunate. [Heureux le chainon d'or ! 
plus heureux encore, s'il sait qu'il n'est qu'' heureux.] He 
has attained the highest degree of moral perfection, and is 
nevertheless without pride, knowing. that what he is is the 
necessary result of the place which he must occupy in the 
chain. 

" The Gospel is the allegorical exposition of this sys- 
tem ; the simile of the potter is its summary." * 

In what essential respect does this system differ from 
that of Spinoza ? Is it not even more dangerous in its 
practical tendency, in consequence of the high strain of 
mystical devotion by which it is exalted ? 

This objection, however, does not apply to the quota- 
tions which follow. They exhibit, without any coloring 
of imagination or of enthusiasm, the scheme of necessity 
pushed to the remotest and most alarming conclusions 
which it appeared to Clarke to involve ; and, as they ex- 
press the serious and avowed creed of two of our contem- 
poraries, (both of them men of distinguished talents,) may 
be regarded as a proof that the zeal displayed by Clarke 
against the metaphysical principles which led ultimately to 
such results was not so unfounded as some worthy and 
able inquirers have supposed. 

" All that is must be," says the Baron de Grimm, ad- 
dressing himself to the Duke of Saxe Gotha, — " all that 
is must be, even because it is ; this is the only sound phi- 
losophy ; as long as we do not know this universe a priori^ 
(as they say in the schools,) all is necessitt. Liberty 

* Bonnet, Principes Pkilosophiques, Part VIII. Chap. vii. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY. 277 

is a word without meaning, as you will see in the letter of 
M. Diderot." 

The following passage is extracted from Diderot's let- 
ter here referred to. 

^' I am now, my dear friend, going to qviit the lone of 
a preacher, to take, if I can, that of a philosopher. Ex- 
amine it narrowly, and you will see that the word liberty 
is a word devoid of meaning ; that there are not, and that 
there cannot be, free beings ; that we are only what ac- 
cords with the general order, with our organization, our 
education, and the chain of events. These dispose of us 
invincibly. We can no more conceive of a being acting 
without a motive than we can of one of the arms of a balance 
acting without a weight. The motive is always exterior 
and foreign, fastened upon us by some cause distinct from 
ourselves. What deceives us is the prodigious variety of 
our actions, joined to the habit, which we catch at our 
birth, of confounding the voluntary and the free. We 
have been so often praised and blamed, and have so 
often praised and blamed others, that we contract an 
inveterate prejudice of believing that we and they ivill 
and act freely. But if there is no liberty, there is no 
action that merits either praise or blame ; neither vice nor 
virtue ; nothing that ought either to be rewarded or pun- 
ished. What, then, is the distinction among men ? The 
doing of good and the doing of ill ! The doer of ill is 
one who must be destroyed or punished. The doer of 
good is lucky, not virtuous. But though neither the doer 
of good nor of ill be free, man is nevertheless a being to 
be modified ; it is for this reason the doer of ill should 
be destroyed upon the scaffold. From thence the good 
effects of education, of pleasure, of grief, of grandeur, of 
poverty, &c. ; from thence a philosophy full of pity, 
strongly attached to the good, nor more angry with the 
wicked than the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with 
dust. Strictly speaking, there is but one sort of causes, 
that is, physical causes. There is but one sort of necessity^ 
ivhich is the same for all beings. This is what reconciles 
me to human kind ; it is for this reason I exhort you to 
philanthropy. Adopt these principles if you think them 
good, or show me that they are bad. If you adopt them 
24 



278 FREE AGENCY. 

they will reconcile you, too, with others and with your- 
self ; you will neither be pleased nor angry with yourself 
for being what you are. Reproach others for nothing, 
and repent of nothing ; this is the first step to wisdom. 
Besides this, all is prejudice and false philosophy." * 

Substantially the same doctrines have been recently in- 
troduced into this country, and I have no doubt with good 
intentions, by a very different class of philosophers, the 
greater part of whom have labored hard to dispute the 
connection between the premises and some of the conclu- 
sions. Not so Mr. Belsham. '■'■Remorse,'''' says he, "is the 
exquisitely painful feeling which arises from the belief, that, 
in circumstances precisely the same, we might have chosen 
and acted differently. This fallacious feeling is supersed- 
ed by the doctrine of necessity.". And again, — " The 
doctrine of philosophical necessity supersedes remorse, 
so far as remorse is founded upon the belief, that, in the 
same previous circumstances, it was possible to have acted 
otherwise." In another part of Mr. Belsham's work the 
following observation occurs : — " Remorse supposes free- 
will. It arises from forgetfulness of the precise state of 
mind when the action was performed. It is of little or no 
use in moral discipline. In a degree it is even perni- 
cious." As to our moral sentiments concerning the con- 
duct and character of our fellow-creatures, Mr. Belsham 
is of opinion that the doctrine of necessity conciliates good- 
will to men. "By teaching us to look up to God as the 
prime agent, and the proper cause of every thing that hap- 
pens, and to regard men as nothing more than instruments 
which he employs for accomplishing his good pleasure, it 
tends to suppress all resentment, malice, and revenge ; w^hile 
it induces us to regard our worst enemies with compassion 
rather than with hatred, and to return good for evil." f 

From these extracts it appears that Mr, Belsham is not 
only himself convinced of the truth of the doctrine of ne- 

* Correspondance Litt^raire, Philosophique et Critique, Tom. II. pp. 
56, 60 et seq. 

t Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, pp. 2S4, 307, 316, 406. 
<' The doctrine of necessity," says Dr. Hartley, " has a tendency to abate 
all resentment against men. Since all they do against us is by the ap- 
pointment of God, it is rebellion against him to be offended with them." 
Observations on Man, Part I., Conclusion. 



ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITS". 279 

cessity, considered as a philosophical dogma, but that he 
conceives it would be for the advantage of the world if all 
mankind were to become converts to his way of thinking. 
In this respect his system is certainly much more of a piece 
than that of Lord Kames, who, although he adopts zeal- 
ously the doctrine of necessity , and represents the argument 
in support of it as demonstrative, yet candidly acknowl- 
edges that our natural feelings are adverse to that doctrine ; 
and even goes so far as to say, that, without such a feel- 
ing, the business of society could not be carried on. In this 
dilemma he attempts to reconcile the two opinions, by the 
supposition of a deceitful sense of liberty. We are so lorm- 
ed as to believe that we are free agents, when in truth we 
are mere machines, acting only so far as we are acted upon. 
Perhaps no opinion on the subject of necessity was ever 
offered to the public which excited more general opposi- 
tion than this hypothesis of a deceitful sense ; and yet, if 
the argument for necessity be admitted, I do not see any 
other supposition which can possibly reconcile the con- 
clusions of our reason with the feelings of which every 
man is conscious. Not that I would insinuate any apology 
for a doctrine, the absurdity of which is not only obvious, 
but ludicrous, inasmuch as it involves the supposition that 
the Deity intended that his creatures should believe them- 
selves to be free agents ; and that, while the great mass of 
mankind were thus deceived to their own advantage, a 
few minds of a superior order had the metaphysical sagac- 
ity to detect the imposition. Nor is this all. If the doc- 
trine of necessity be just, it must one day or another be- 
come the universal and popular creed of mankind, as every 
doctrine which is true, and more especially every doctrine 
which is supported by demonstrative evidence, may be 
expected to become in the progress of human reason. 
What will then become of the great concerns of human 
life ? Will man, as he improves in knowledge, be unfitted 
for the ends of his being, and exhibit an inconsistency be- 
tween his reasoning faculties and his active principles, 
contrary to the invariable analogy of that systematical and 
harmonious design which is everywhere else so conspic- 
uous in the works of nature ? * 

* This argument is very ably and forcibly stated in a small pamphlet 



280 FREE AGENCr. 

Lord Kames, who was a most sincere inquirer after 
truth, abandoned, in the last edition of his Essays on 
JMorality and .JYalural Religion, the doctrine of a deceit- 
ful sense of liberty ; and in so doing gave a rare example 
of candor and fairness as a reasoner. But I am very 
doubtful if the alterations which he made in his scheme did 
not impair the merits which in its original concoction it 
possessed in point of consistency. The first edition of 
this work appeared when the author was in the full vigor 
of his faculties ; the last, when he was approaching to 
fourscore.* 

on liberty and necessity, by the late learned and ingenious Mr. Daw- 
son, of Sedbergh. 

* One of the ablest of the living asserters of necessity, John Stuart 
Mill, acknowledges, and endeavours to correct, the fatalistic implications 
and tendencies of that doctrine, as generally received. We will give his 
own words : — 

" Though the doctrine of necessity, as staled by most who hold it, is 
very remote from fatalism, it is probable that most necessarians are 
fatalists, more or less, in their feelings. A fatalist believes, or half be- 
lieves (for nobody is a consistent fatalist), not only that whatever is 
about to happen will be the infallible result of the causes which pro- 
duce it (which is the true necessarian doctrine), but moreover that there 
is no use in struggling against it ; that it will happen, however we may 
strive to prevent it. J\ovv, a necessarian, believing that our actions fol- 
low from our characters, and that our characters follow from our organ- 
ization, our education, and our circumstances, is apt to be, with more or 
less of consciousness on his part, a fatalist as to his own actions, and to 
believe that his nature is such, or that his education and circumstances 
have so moulded his character, that nothing can now prevent him from 
feeling and acting in a particular way, or at least that no effort of his 
own can hinder it. In the words of the sect [Ilobert Owen and his fol- 
lowers] which in our own day has so perseveringly inculcated, and so 
perversely misunderstood, this great doctrine, hisciiaracter is formedybr 
him, and not by him ; therefore his wishing that it had been formed dif- 
ferently is of no use, — he has no power to alter it. But this is a grand 
error. He has, to a certain extent, a power to alter his character. Its 
being, in the ultimate resort, formed for him, is not inconsistent with its 
being, in part, formed bi/ him as one of the intermediate agents. His 
character is formed by his circumstances (including among these his 
particular organization) ; but his own desire to mould it in a particular 
way is one of those circumstances, and by no means one of the least 
influential. We cannot, indeed, directly will to be different from what 
we are. But did those who are supposed to have formed our charac- 
ters directly will that we should be what we are.'' Their will had no 
direct power except over their own actions. They made us what they 
did make us, by willing, not the end, but the requisite means ; and we, 
when our habits are not too inveterate, can, by similarly willing the 
requisite means, make ourselves different. If they could place us under 
the influence of certain circumstances, we, in like manner, can place 
ourselves under the influence of other circumstances. We are exactly 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. ' 281 



Section III. 

IS THE EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN FAVOR OF THE 
SCHEME OF FREE-WILL, OR OF THAT OF NECESSITY ? 

I. The Appeal to Consciousness. 1 It has been lately 
said, by a very ingenious and acute writer, that " in the 

as capable of making our own character, if toe will., as others are of mak- 
ing it for us. 

"'Yes,' answers the Owenite, ' but these words, "if we will," sur- 
render the whole point: since the will to aller our own character is 
given us, not by any efforts of ours, but by circumstances which we 
cannot help ; it comes to us either from external causes, or not at all.' 
Most true : if the Owenite stops here, he is in a position from which 
nothing can expel him. Our character is formed by us, as well as for 
us; but the wish which induces us to attempt to form it is formed for 
us. And how .'' Not, in general, by our organization or education, but by 
our experience, — experience of the painful consequences of the character 
we previously had ; or by some strong feeling of admiration or aspira- 
tion, accidentally aroused. But to think that we have no power, and to 
think that we shall not use our power unless we have a motive, are 
very different things, and have a very different effect upon the mind. 
A person who does not wish to alter his character cannot be the per- 
son who is supposed to feel discouraged or paralyzed by thinking him- 
self unable to do it. The depressing effect of the fatalist doctrine can 
only be felt where there is a wish to do what that doctrine represents 
as impossible. It is of no consequence what we think forms our char- 
acter when we have no desire of our own about forming it; but it is of 
great consequence that we should not be prevented from forming such a 
desire by thinking the attainment impracticable, and that, if we have the 
desire, we should know that the work is not so irrevocably done as to 
be incapable of being altered 

" The subject will never be generally understood, until that objec- 
tionable term [necessity] is dropped. The free-will doctrine, by keep- 
ing in view precisely that portion of the truth which the word necessity 
puts out of sight, — namely, the power of the mind to cooperate in the 
formation of its own character, — has given to its adherents a practical 
feeling much nearer to the truth than has generally, I believe, existed 
in the minds of necessarians. The latter may have had a stronger 
sense of the importance of what human beings can do to shape the char- 
acters of one another ; but the free-will doctrine has, I believe, fostered, 
especially in the younger of its supporters, a much stronger spirit of 
self-culture." — System of Logic, Book VI. Chap. ii. § 3. 

The concessions contained in the last paragraph, considered as com- 
ing from a thorough-going necessitarian, are important. The modifica- 
tion in the understanding of the doctrine here proposed removes some 
of the purely psychological objections to it, but does not touch the 
moral objections. The doctrine is still as irreconcilable as ever with 
any intelligible acceptation of human accountability, or the moral gov- 
ernment of God. And besides, when Mr. Mill asserts that " the feel- 
ing of moral freedom which we are conscious of" is nothing but a 

24* 



282 FREE AGENCY. 

controversy concerning liberty and necessity, the only 
question at issue between the disputants related to a matter 
of fact, on which they both appealed to the evidence of 
consciousness ; namely, whether, all previous circum- 
stances being the same, the choice of man be not also at 
all times the same."* 

If the author of this observation had contented himself 
with saying that this question concerning the matter of fact, 
as ascertained by the evidence of consciousness, ought to 
have been considered as the only point at issue between 
the contending parties, I should most readily have sub- 
scribed to his proposition. Indeed, I have expressed 
myself very nearly to the same purpose in a former work.f 
But if it is to be understood as an historical statement of 
the manner in which the controversy has always or even 
most frequently been carried on, I must beg leave to dis- 
sent from it very widely. How many arguments against 
the freedom of the will have been in all ages drawn from 
the prescience of the Deity ! How many still continue to 
be drawn by very eminent divines from the doctrines of 
predestination and of eternal decrees ! Has not Mr. 
Locke himself acknowledged the impression which the 
former of these considerations made on his mind ? " I 
own," says he, " freely to you the weakness of ray under- 
standing ; that though it be unquestionable that there is 
omnipotence and omniscience in God our Maker, and 
though / cannot have a clearer perception of any thing 
than that I am free, yet I cannot make freedom in man 
consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in God, 
though I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truth I 
most firmly assent to ; and therefore I have long since 
given off the consideration of that question, resolving all 
into this short conclusion, that if it be possible for God 
to make a free agent, then man is free, though I see not 
the way of it." 

" feeling of pur being able to modify our own character if we wish," he 
asserts what the advocates of free-will will not admit to be true. If 
what we do depends on our wishing to do it, and our wishing to do it 
does not depend on ourselves, then nothing depends on ourselves, — 
except to be the willing and active instruments of destiny. — En. 
* Edinburgh Revieio, Vol. XXVII. p. 226. [By Sir James Mackintosh.] 
t Philosophy of the Human Mind, Part II. Chap. i. Sect. ii. 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 283 

A Still more recent exception to the general assertion, 
which has given occasion to this section, occurs in Lord 
Karnes's hypothesis of a deceitful sense of liberty, noticed 
above, as maintained in the first edition of his Essays on 
.Morality and JYatural Religion. Here, upon the faiih of 
some subtile metaphysical reasonings, the very ingenious 
author adopts the scheme of necessity in direct opposition 
to the evidence which he candidly confesses that con- 
sciousness affords of our free agency. Even the latest 
advocates for necessity, Priestley and Belsham, as well as 
their predecessor, Collins himself, while they appealed 
(in the very words of the learned critic) to the evidence 
of consciousness in proof of the fact, that, all previous cir- 
cumstances being the same, the choice of man is also at all 
times the same, yet thought it worth their while to strengthen 
this conclusion by calling to their aid the theological doc- 
trines already mentioned. I cannot, therefore, see with 
what color of plausibility it can be said that " this matter 
of fact has been the only question at issue between the 
disputants." 

It may, however, be regarded as one great step gained 
in this controversy, if it may henceforth be assumed as a 
principle agreed on by both parties, that this is the only 
question which can be philosophically stated on the sub- 
ject, and that all arguments drawn from the attributes of 
the Deity are entirely foreign to the discussion. I shall 
accordingly devote this section to an examination of the 
fact, agreeably to the representation of it given by our 
modern necessitarians. 

In what I have hitherto said upon the subject, I have 
proceeded on the supposition, that the doctrine of free- 
will is consistent with the common feelings and belief of 
mankind. That " all our actions do now, in experience, 
seem to us to be free, exactly in the same manner as they 
would do upon the supposition of our being really free 
agents," is remarked by Clarke in his reply to Collins. 
" And consequently," he adds, "though this alone does 
not amount to a strict demonstration of our being free, yet 
it leaves on the other side of the question nothing but a 
bare possibility of our being so framed by the Author of 
nature, as to be unavoidably deceived in this matter by 



284 FREE AGENCY. 

every experience and every action we perform. The 
case is exactly the same," continues Dr. Clarke, "as in 
that notable question, ivhether the world exists or no. 
There is no demonstration of it from experience. There 
always remains a bare possibility that the Supreme Being 
may have so framed my mind as that I shall always ne- 
cessarily be deceived in every one of my perceptions, as 
in a dream, though possibly there be no material icorld, 
nor any other creature whatsoever existing besides my- 
self. Of this I say there always remains a bare possibil- 
ity, and yet no man in his senses argues from thence that 
experience is no proof to us of the existence of things.''^ * 

* Remarks, p. 19. 

Cousin niainlains liberty on the authority of consciousness. A free 
action is defined by him to be one " performed with the consciousness 
of power not to do it." He then proceeds to analyze a free action in 
order to ascertain precisely in what part it is free. According to him, 
the total action is resolvable into three elements, perfectlj' distinct: — 
" 1. The intetlectual element, which is composed of the knowledge of 
the motives for and against, of deliberation, of preference, of choice. 
2. The voluntary element, which consists in an internal act, namely, 
the resolution, the determination to do it. 3. The physical element, or 
external action. 

" The question now to be decided is, precisely in which of these three 
elements liberty is to be found, — that is, the power of doing with the 
consciousness of being able not to do. Does this power of doing, while 
conscious of the power not to do, belong to the first element, the intel- 
lectual element of the free action .-' It does not; for it is not at the will 
of a man to judge that such or such a motive is preferable to another; 
we are not master of our preferences; we judge in this respect accord- 
ing to our intellectual nature, which has its necessary laws, without 
having the consciousness of being able to judge otherwise, and even 
with the consciousness of not being able to judge otherwise, than we 
do. It is not, then, in this element that we are to look for liberty. Still 
less is it in the third element, in the physical action ; for this action 
supposes an external world, an organization corresponding to it, and, in 
this organization, a muscular system sound and suitable, without whicli 
the physical action would be impossible. When we accomplish it, we 
are conscious of acting, but under the condition of a theatre of which 
we have not the disposal, and of instruments of which we have but an 
imperfect disposal, which we can neither replace if they escape us, — and 
they may do so every moment, — nor repair if they are out of order or 
unfaithful, as is often the case, and which are subject to laws peculiar to 
themselves, over which we have no power, and which we scarceh' even 
know. Whence it follows, that we do not act here with the conscious- 
ness of being able to do the contrary of what we do. Liberty, then, is 
no more to be found in the third than in the first element. It can then 
only be in the second ; and there in fact we find it. 

"Neglect the first and third elements, the judgment and the physical 
action, and let the second element, the willing, subsist by itself; anal- 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 285 

II. Consciousness vainly denied to be in favor of Lib- 
erty.] But this appeal to consciousness in proof of free 
agency proceeds altogether (according to some late writ- 
ers) on a partial and superficial view of the subject ; the 
evidence of consciousness.) when all circumstances are 
taken into the account and duly weighed, being decidedly 
in favor of the scheme of necessity. 

Dr. Hartley was, I believe, one of the first (if not the 
first) who denied that our consciousness is in favor of our 
free agency. " It is true," he observes, "that a man by 
internal feeling may prove his own free-will, if by free-will 
be meant the power of doing what a man wills or desires ; 
or of resisting the motives of sensuality, ambition, &C.5 
that is, free-will in the popular and practical sense. Every 
person may easily recollect instances where he has done 
these several things, but these are entirely foreign to the 
present question. To prove that a man has free-will in 
the sense opposite to mechanism, he ought to feel that he 
can do different things while the motives remain precisely 
the same. And here, I apprehend, the internal feelings 
are entirely against free-will, where the motives are of a 
sufficient magnitude to be evident : where they are not, 
nothing can be proved." * 

Mr. Belsham has enlarged still more fully on this sub- 
ject. " When men," says he, " who have been guilty 
of a crime review the action in calmer moments, when the 
strength of passion has subsided, and the contrary motives 

ysis discovers in this single element two terms, namely, a special act of 
willing, and the poicer of willing, which is within us, and to which we 
refer the special act. That act is an effect in relation to the power of 
willing, which is its cause; and this cause, in order to produce its effect, 
has need of no other theatre, and no other instrument, than itself It 
produces it directly, without any thing intermediate, and without con- 
dition ; continues and consummates, or suspends and modifies; creates 
it, or annihilates it entirely; and at the moment it exerts itself in any 
special act, we are conscious that it might exert itself in a special act 
totally contrary, without any obstacle, without being thereby exhausted : 
so that, after having changed its acts a hundred times, the faculty re- 
mains integrally the same, inexhaustible and identical, amidst the per- 
petual variety of its applications, being always able to do what it does 
not do, and able not to do what it does. Here, then, in all its pleni- 
tude, is the characteristic of liberty." — Professor Henry's translation, 
Elements of Psychology, Chap. X. p. 319. See, also, Tappem's Doctrine 
of the Will determined by an Appeal to Consciousness. — Ed. 
* Observations on Man., Part I., Conclusion. 



286 FREE AGENCY. 

appear Iq all their force, and perhaps magnified by the 
evil consequences of their vice and folly, they are ready 
to think that they might at the time have thought and act- 
ed as they now think and act ; but this is a fallacious feel- 
ing, and arises from their not placing themselves in cir- 
cumstances exactly similar." We are elsewhere told by 
Mr. Belsham, that the popular opinion, that in many cases 
it was in the power of the agent to have chosen differently, 
the previous circumstances remaining exactly the same, 
arises either from a mistake of the question, from 2l for get- 
fulness of the motives by ichich our choice teas determined.^ 
or from the extreme difficulty of placing ourselves in im- 
magination in circumstances exactly similar to those in 
which the election was made." And still more explicitly 
and concisely in the following aphorism: — "The pre- 
tended consciousness of free-will amounts to nothing more 
than forgetfulness of the motive."* To the same pur- 
pose Dr. Priestley has expressed himself. "x\ man, when 
he reproaches himself for any -particular action in his past 
conduct, may fancy that, if he w^as in the same situation 
again, he would have acted differently. But this is a 
mere deception ; and if he examines himself strictly, and 
takes in all circumstances, he may be satisfied that, with 
the same inward disposition of mind, and with precisely 
the same views of things that he had then, and exclusive of 
all others that he has acquired by reflection since, he could 
not have acted otherwise than he did."f 

If these statements be accurately examined, they will 
be found to resolve entirely into this identical proposition, 
that the icill of the criminal, being supposed to remain in 

"" Elements, pp. 278, 279, 306. 

t Illustrations of Philosophical Mecessity, p. 99. 

The very same view of the subject has been lately taken bj' Laplace, 
in his Essai P hilosophique sur les Prohabilitfs. " L'axiome connu sous 
le nom de principe de la raison snffisantc s'etend aux actions menie que 
Ton juge indifterentes. La volonte la plus libra ne peut sans un motif 
determinant leur donner naissance ; car si, toutes les circonstances de 
deux positions 6tant exactenient semblables, elle agissait dans I'une et 
s'abstenait d'agir dans 1 'autre, son choix serait un effet sans cause : elle 
serait alors, dit Leibnitz, le hasard aveugle des epicuriens. L'opinion 
contraire est une illusion de I'esprit qui perdant de vue les raisons fugi- 
tives du choix de la volonte dans les choses indifferentes, se persuade 
qu'elle s'est determinee d'elle-m^me et sans motifs." — Under the head, 
De la Probability. 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 287 

the same state as when the crime was committed, he could 
not have willed and acted otherwise. This proposition, 
it is obvious, does not at all touch the cardinal point in 
question, which is simply this : whether, all other circum- 
stances remaining the same, the criminal had it not in his 
power to abstain from willing the commission of the crime. 
The vagueness of Priestley's language upon this occasion 
must not be overlooked ; the words inivnrd disposition of 
mind admitting of a variety of different meanings, and in 
this instance being plainly intended to include the act of 
the will as well as every thing else connected with the 
criminal action. 

In the preceding strictures, I have been partly antici- 
pated by the following very acute remarks of Dr. Magee 
on the definitions of volition and of philosophical liberty, 
prefixed to Mr. Belsham's discussion of the doctrines now 
under our consideration. According to Mr. Belsham, 
" Volition is that state of mind which is immediately pre- 
vious to actions which are called voluntary." " JYatural 
liberty, or, as it is more properly called, philosophical 
liberty, or liberty of choice, is the power of doing an ac- 
tion or its contrary, all the previous circumstances remain- 
ing the same.'''' * — " Now here," says Dr. Magee, " is 
the point of free-will at once decided ; for volition itself 
being included among the previous circumstances, it is a 
manifest contradiction to suppose the ' power of doing an 
action or its contrary, all the previous circumstances re- 
maining the same ' ; since that supposes the power to act 
voluntarily against a volition. After this," Dr. Magee 
justly and pertinently adds, " Mr. Belsham might surely 
have spared himself the trouble of the ninety-two pages 
which follow." f 

And why have recourse, with Belsham and Priestley, 
in this argument, to the indistinct and imperfect recollec- 
tion of the criminal at a subsequent period, with respect to 
the state of his feelings while he was perpetrating the 
crime .'' Why not make a direct appeal to his conscious- 
ness at the very moment when he was doing the deed ? 

* Elements, p. 227. 

t Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of .Itonement 
and Sacrifice, Appendix, Vol. II. p. 180, note. 



288 FREE AGENCY. 

Will any person of candor deny, that, in the very act of 
transgressing an acknowledged duty, he is impressed with 
a conviction, as complete as that of his ow"n existence, 
that his will is free, and that he is ahusing, contrary to the 
suggestions of reason and conscience, his moral liberty ? * 

Sometimes, indeed, when we are under the influence 
of a violent appetite or passion, our judgment is apt to see 
things in a false light ; and hence a wise man learns to dis- 
trust his own opinion when he is thus circumstanced, and 
to act, not according to his present judgment, but accord- 
ing to those general maxims of propriety of which his 
reason had previously approved in his cooler hours. All 
this, however, evidently proceeds on the supposition of 
his free agency ; and, so far from implying any belief on 
his part of fatalism or of moral necessity, evinces in a 
manner peculiarly striking and satisfactory, the power 
which he feels himself to possess, not only over the pres- 
ent^ but over the future determinations of his W'ill. In 
some other instances, it happens that I believe bona fide 
an action to be right, at the moment I perform it, and 
afterwards discover that I judged improperly ; — perhaps 
from want of sufficient information, or from a careless and 
partial view of the subject. In such a case, I may un- 
doubtedly regret as a misfortune what has happened. I 
may blame myself for my carelessness in not having ac- 
quired the proper information before I acted ; but I can- 
not consider myself as criminal in acting at that moment 
according to the views which I then entertained. On the 
contrary, if I had acted in opposition to these views, 
althoug-1) my conduct might have been agreeable to the 
dictates of a more enlightened understanding than my own, 
yet, with respect to myself, the action would have been 
wrong. 

If the doctrine of necessity were just, what possible 
foundation could there be for the distinction we always 
make between an accidental hurt and an intended injury^ 
when received from another ; or for the different senti- 
ments of regret and of remorse that we experience, accord- 

* "The free-will of man," says Bolingbroke, "which no one can 
deny that he has, without lying, or renouncing his intuitive knowl- 
edge.'' — Fragments, No. XLII. 



EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 289 

ing as the misfortunes we suffer are the consequences of 
our own misconduct or not. What an alleviation of our 
sufferings when we are satisfied that we cannot consider 
ourselves as the authors of them ! and what a cruel aggra- 
vation of our miseries, when we can trace them to some- 
thing in which we have been obviously to blan:e ! * 

* Sir W. Hamilton accepts the fact of moral liberty on the evidence 
of consciousness ; still he finds insuperable difficulties in conceiving of 
its possibility. In a note on Dr. Reid's definition of the liberty of a 
moral agent, he says: — "Moral liberty does not merely consist in the 

fower of doing what ice will, but in the power of loilling ichat we will. 
or a power over the determinations of our will supposes an act of will 
that our will should determine so and so ; for we can only freely exert 
power through a rational determination or volition. But then question 
upon question remains, and this ad infinitum. Have we a power (a 
will) over such anterior will .'' and until this question be definitively 
answered, which it never can be, we must be unable to conceive the possi- 
bility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not 
therefore false. For there are many contradictories, (and of contra- 
dictories, one must, and one only can, be true.) of which we are equally 
unable to conceive the possibility of either. The philosophy, there- 
fore, which I profess, annihilates the theoretical problem, — How is the 
scheme of liberty, or the scheme of necessity, to be rendered compre- 
hensible .' — by showing that both schemes are equally inconceivable ; 
but it establishes liberty practically as a fact, by showing that it is either 
itself an immediate datum, or is involved in an immediate datum, of 
consciousness." 

Again he says: — " To conceive a /ree «rf is to conceive an act which, 
being a cause, is not in itself an effect ; in other words, to conceive an 
absolute commencement. But is such by us conceivable.''" Accord- 
ing to him, in order to be a free agent it is not enough that a person is 
the cause of the determination of his own will ; he must not be " de- 
termined to that determination." "But is the person," he asks, " an 
original undetermined cause of the determination of his will .'' If he be 
not, then he is not a. free agent, and the scheme of necessity is admitted. 
If he be, in the first place, it is impossible to conceive the possibility of 
this ; and, in the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, 
it is impossible to see how a cause undetermiiicd by any motive can be a 
rational, moral, and accountable cause. There is no conceivable medi- 
um between fatalism and casuism ; and the contradictory schemes of 
liberty and necessity themselves are inconceivable. For as we cannot 
compass in thought an undetermined cause, — an absolute commencement, 
— the fundamental hypothesis of the one ; so we can as little think an 
infinite series of determined causes, — of relative commencements, — the 
fundamental hypothesis of the other. The champions of the opposite 
doctrines are thus at once resistless in assault, and impotent in defence. 
Each is hewn down, and appears to die under the home-thrusts of his 
adversary ; but each again recovers life from the very death of his an- 
tagonist, and, to borrow a simile, both are like the heroes in Valhalla, 
ready in a moment to amuse themselves anew in the bloodless and in- 
terminable conflict. 

" The doctrine of moral libertv cannot be made conceivable, for we 
25 



290 FREE AGENCY. 



Section IV. 

OF THE SCHEMES OF FREE-WILL, AND OF NECESSITY, CON- 
SIDERED AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 

I. Tendency of the Scheme of J^Tecessity to Pantheism 
and Atheism.] Collins, In his inquiry concerning human 
liberty, after endeavouring to show that " liberty can only 
be grounded on the ' absurd principles of Epicurean athe- 
ism,' " observes, that " the Epicurean atheists, who were 
the most popular and most numerous sect of the atheists 
of antiquity, were the great asserters of liberty ;* as, on 
the other side, the Stoics, who were the most popular and 
numerous sect among the religionists of antiquity, were the 
great asserters of fate and necessity: The case was also 

can only conceive the determined and the relative. As already stated, 
all that can be done is to show, — 1st. That, for the /wcf of liberty, we 
have, immediately or mediately, the evidence of consciousness ; and, 
2d. Tliat there are, among the phenomena of mind, man}' facts which 
we must admit as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly unable 
to form a notion. I may merely observe, that the fact of motion can be 
shown to be impossible, on grounds not less strong than those on which 
it is attempted to disprove tiie fact of liberty ; to say nothing of many 
contradictories, neither of which can be thought, but one of which must, 
on the laws of contradiction and excluded middle, necessarily be. This 
philosophy — the Philosophy of the Conditionid — has not, however, 
either in itself, or in relation to its consequences, as yet been devel- 
oped." — Hamilton's edition of Reid's Works, Essays on the Active 
Powers, Essay IV. Chap. i. 

Kant comes to substantially the same conclusions. In his Critic of 
Pure Reason, under the head of " the antinomy of pure reason " in his 
"Transcendental Dialectic," he treats of liberty and necessity as con- 
stituting one of tile "contradictions of transcendental ideas," both the 
"thesis" and the "antithesis" being demonstrable. Afterwards, in his 
Critic of Practical Reason^ he maintains the fact of liberty as a corollary 
of the /ac< of moral obligation. — Ed. 

* In proof of this assertion, that the ancient Epicureans were advo- 
cates for man's free agency, Collins refers to Lucretius, Lib. II. v. 251 
et seq. But it is to be observed that the liberty here ascribed to the wili 
is nothing more than the liberty of spontaneity, which is conceded to it by 
Collins, and indeed by all necessitarians, without exception, since the 
time of Hobbes. Lucretius, indeed, speaks of this liberty as an excep- 
tion to universal fatalism; hut he nevertheless considers it as a nec&s- 
sarn effect of some cause, to which he gives the name of clinanien, so as 
to render man as completely a piece of passive mechanism as he was 
supposed to be by Collins and Hobbes. The reason, too, which he 
gives for this is, that, if the case were otherwise, there would he an effect 
without a cause. — Ibid., v. 284. 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 291 

the same among the Jews as among the heathens.* The 
Sadducees, who were esteemed an irrehgious and atheisti- 
cal sect, maintained the liberty of man. But the Pharisees, 
who were a religious sect, ascribed all things to fate or to 
God's appointment ; and it was the first article of their 
creed, that Fate and God do all ; and consequently, they 
could not assert a true liberty^ when they asserted a liber- 
ty together with this fatality and necessity of all things." f 
To the same purpose Edwards attempts to show (and 
it Is one of the weakest parts of his book) that the scheme 
of free-will (by affording an exception to that dictate of 
common sense which leads us to refer every event to a 
cause) would destroy the proof a "posteriori for the being 
of God. One thing is certain, that the two schemes of 
atheism and of necessity have been hitherto always con- 
nected together in the history of modern philosophy : not 
that I would, by any means, be understood to say, that 
every necessitarian must ipso facto be an atheist, or even 
that any presumption is afforded, by a man's attachment to 
the former sect, of his having the slightest bias in favor of 
the latter, but only that every modern atheist I have ever 
heard of has been a necessitarian. I cannot help adding, 
that by far the ablest necessitarians who have yet appeared 
have been those who followed out their principles till they 
ended in Spinozism ; a doctrine which ditTers from athe- 
ism more in words than in reality. J 

* With respect to the opinions of the Sadducees and the Pharisees on 
man's free agency, see Cudworth's Intellectual System, with Mosheim's 
Notes and Dissertations, translated by Harrison, Bool< I. Chap. i. § 4. 
According to Josephus, the Pharisees held " that some things, and not 
all, were the effects of fate, but some things were left in man's own 
power and libert}^" — Jlntiq. Jud., Lib. XIII. Cap. v. Sect. 9. 

t In this passage, as in others, Collins plainly proceeds on the sup- 
position, that all fatalists are of course necessitarians ; and I agree with 
him in thinking, that this would be the case if they reasoned conse- 
quentially. It is certain, however, that a great proportion of those who 
have belonged to the first sect have disclaimed all connection with the 
second. The Stoics themselves, notwithstanding what is said above, 
furnish one very remarkable instance. I do not know any author by 
whom the liberty of the will is stated in stronger and more explicit 
terms than it is by Epictetus, in the first sentence of the Enchiridion. 
Indeed, the Stoics seem, with their usual passion for exaggeration, to 
have carried their ideas about the freedom of the will to an unphilo- 
sophical extreme. 

I " The following is Cousin's view of Spinoza's system. It appar- 



292 FREE AGENCY. 

II. Moral and Political Tendencies of the Scheme of 
t^Tecessity.] In Bernier's Abrege de la Philosophic de 

ently differs from what is said above, but really tends to the same con- 
chusions. ' Instead of accusing Spinoza of atheism, he ought to be re- 
proached for an error in the other direction. Spinoza starts from the 
perfect and infinite being of Descartes's system, and easily demonstrates 
that such a being is alone being in itself ; but that a being, finite, im- 
perfect, and relative, only participates of being, without possessing it in 
itself; — that being in itself is necessarily one; — that there is hut one sub- 
stance ; — and that all that remains has only a phenomenal existence; — 
that to call phenomena finite substances is affirming and denying at the 
same time; for as there is but one substance which possesses being in 
itself, and the finite is that which participates of existence v\ithout pos- 
sessing it in itself, a substance finite implies two contradictory notions. 
Thus, in the philosophy of Spinoza, man and nature are pure phenomena, 
simple attributes of that one and absolute substance, but attributes which 
are coeternal with their substance : for as phenomena cannot exist v/ith- 
out a subject, the imperfect without the perfect, the finite without the 
infinite, and man and nature suppose God ; so, likewise, the substance 
cannot exist without phenomena, the perfect without the imperfect, the 
infinite without the finite, and God on his part supposes man and na- 
ture. The error of his system lies in the predominance of the relation 
of phenomenon to being, of attribute to substance, over the relation of 
ejfiecl to cause. When man has been represented, not as a cause volun- 
tary and free, but as necessary and uncontrollable desire, and as an im- 
perfect and finite thought, God, or the supreme pattern of humanity, 
can be only a substance, and not a cause, — a being, perfect, infinite, 
necessary, — the immutable substance of the universe, and not its produc- 
ing and creating cause. In Cartesianism, the notion of substance figures 
more conspicuously than that of cause ; and this notion of substance, 
become altogether predominant, constitutes Spinozism.' — Histoire de la 
Philosnphie du XVIII"- Sidcle, Tome I. p. 465. 

" The preponderance of the notion of substance and attribute over that 
of cause and effect, which Cousin here pronounces the vice of Spinoza's 
system, is indeed the vice of every system which contains the dogma of 
the necessary determination of will. The first consequence is panthe- 
ism ; the second, atheism. I will endeavour to explain. When self- 
determination is denied to will, and it is resolved into mere desire, 
necessitated in all its acts from its preconstituted correlation with ob- 
jects, then icill really ceases to be a cause. It becomes an instrument 
of antecedent power, but is no power in itself, creative or productive. 
The reasoning employed in reference to the human will applies in all 
its force to the Divine will, as has been already abundantiv shown. 
The Divine will therefore ceases to be a cause, and becomes a mere 
instrument of antecedent power. This antecedent power is the infinite 
and necessary wisdom : but infinite and necessary wisdom is eternal and 
unchangeable; what it is now, it always was; what tendencies or 
energies it has now, it always had ; and therefore, whatever volitions 
it now necessarily produces it always necessarily produced. If we 
conceive a volition to have been, in one direction, the immediate and 
necessary antecedent of creation ; and, in another, the immediate and 
necessary sequent of infinite and eternal wisdom; then this volition 
must have alioaijs existed, and consequently creation, as the necessary 
effect of this volition, must have alicays existed. The eternal and infinite 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 293 

Gassendi, there are some very judicious observations on 
the practical tendency of the scheme of necessity ; — a 

wisdom thus becomes the substance, because this is existence in itself, no 
antecedent being conceivable ; and creation, consisting of man and na- 
ture, imperfect and finite, participating only of existence, and not being 
existence in themselves, are 7iot substances, but phenomena. But what 
is the relation of the phenomena to the substance ? Not that of effect 
to cause; — this relation slides entirely out of view, the moment loill 
ceases to be a cause. It is the relation simply of phenomena to being, 
considered as the necessary and inseparable manifestations of being ; 
the relation of attributes to substance, considered as the necessary and 
inseparable properties of substance. We cannot conceive of substance 
without attributes or phenomena, nor of attributes or plienomena with- 
out substance: they are, therefore, cooternal in this relation. IVho, then, 
is God .'' Substance and its attributes ; being and its phenomena. In 
other words, the universe, as made up of substance and attributes, is 
God. This is pantheism ; and it is the first and legitimate consequence 
of a necessitated will. 

" The second consequence is atheism. In the denial of will as a 
cause per se, — in resolving all its volitions into the necessary phe- 
nomena of the eternal substance, — we destroy personality: we have 
nothing remaining but the universe. Now we may call the universe 
God; but with equal propriety we call God the universe. This distinc- 
tion of personality, this merging of God into necessary substance and 
attributes, is all that we mean by atheism. The conception is reallv the 
same, whether we name it fate, pantheism., or atheism. 

" The arguments of many atheists might be referred to, to illustrate 
the connection between necessity and atheism. I shall here refer, hovi'- 
ever, to only one individual, remarkable both for his poetic genius and 
metaphysical acumen. I mean the late Percy Bysshe Shelley. He 
openly and unblushingly professed atheism. In his Queen Mab we find 
this line : ' There is no God.' In a note upon this line, he remarks, — 
' This negation must be understood solely to afl^ect a creative Deity. 
The hypothesis of a pervading spirit, coeternal with the universe, re- 
mains unshaken.' This last hypothesis is pantheism. Pantheism is 
really the negation of a creative Deity, — the identity, or at least neces- 
sary and eternal coexistence, of God and the universe. Shelley has ex- 
pressed this clearly in another passage : — 

' Spirit of nature ! all-sufficing power, 
Necessity ! thou mother of the world ! ' 

" In a note upon this passage, Shelley has argued the doctrine of the 
necessary determination of will by motive with an acuteness and power 
scarcely inferior to Collins or Edwards. He makes, indeed, a different 
application of the doctrine, but a perfectly legitimate one. Collins and 
Edwards, and the whole race of necessitarian theologians, evidently 
toil under insurmountable difficulties, while attempting to base religion 
upon this doctrine, and efi'ect their escape only under a fog of subtilties. 
But Shelley, in daring to be perfectly consistent, is perfectly clear. He 
fearlessly proceeds from necessity to pantheism, and thence to atheism 
and the destruction of all moral distinctions. ' We are taught,' he re- 
marks, ' by the doctrine of necessity, that there is neither good nor evil 
in the universe, otherwise than as the events to which we apply these 
epithets have relation to our own peculiar mode of being. Still less 

25* 



294 FREE AGENCY. 

subject on which his opinion is entitled to great weight, 
not only from his long residence among the followers of 
Mahomet, but from those prepossessions in favor of this 
scheme which he may be presumed to have imbibed from 
his education under Gassendi. I shall quote a few of his 
concluding reflections. 

" De tout ceci jugez si j'ai sujet de croire cette doc- 
trine si pernicieuse a la societe humaine. Certainement a 
considerer que ce sont principalement les Mahometans qui 
s'en trouvent infectees, et que c'est principalement encore 
parmi elles presentement qu'elle est fomentee et entre- 
tenue, je douterois presque que ce fut I'invention de quel- 
ques uns de ces tyrans d'Asie, comme auroit peutelre 
un Mahomet, un Tamerlane, un Bajazet, ou quelqu'un 
de ces autres fleaux du monde qui pour assouvir leur am- 
bition demandoit des soldats qui etant entetes de predesti- 
nation, s'abandonassent brutalement a tout, et se precipi- 
tassent memo volontiers, aux occasions, la lete la pre- 
miere dans le fosse d'une vlUe assiegee pour servir du pont 
au reste de I'armae. Je scais bien qii'on pourroit peut- 
etre dire que cette opinion est mal prise et mal entendue 
par les Mahometans ; mais quoi quMl en soit, que doit on 
raisonablement penser d'une doctrine qui pent si aisement 
etre mal-prise et qui peut, soit par erreur ou autrement, 
avoir si etranges suites .'' " * 

than with the hypothesis of a God, will the doctrine of necessity accord 
with the belief of a future state of punishment.' " — Tappan's Review of 
Edwards, pp. 139, 145. For an exposition of Spinoza's theory, see 
Jouftroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lect. VI. and VII. — Ed. 

* Tome VIII. p. 536, et scq. " Judge from what has been said 
whether I have not reason to think this doctrine pernicious to society. 
Indeed, when I consider that it is principally the Mahometans ^^■ho are 
infected with it, that it is principally by them that it is still fomented 
and kept up, 1 almost suspect it to nave been the invention of one of 
tliose Asiatic despots, of a Mahomet, a Tamerlane, a Bajazet, or some 
other scourge of the world, who, in order to glut his ambition, required 
soldiers besotted by a belief in predestination, and therefore ready to 
abandon themselves brutall}' to every thing, — to precipitate themselves 
headlong, if necessary, into the trenches ot" a besieged city to serve as a 
bridge for the rest of the army. Many will sav, I am aware, that this 
doctrine is mistaken and misunderstood by the Mahometans ; but, how- 
ever this may be, wljat opinion can we reasonably entertain of a tenet 
which is so liable to be misapprehended, and is followed, either through 
mistake or otherwise, by such strange consequences .' " 

For a less unfavorable view of the practical tendency of a belief in 
necessity, see an article by Sir James Mackintosh, in the Edinburgh 
Review, Vol. XXVII. p. ISO. — Ed. 



THE THEORY AS INFLUENCING PRACTICE. 295 

The scheme of free-will is not liable to any such ob- 
jection, inasmuch as it seems quite impossible for the most 
ingenious sophistry to pervert it to any pernicious purpose. 
Indeed, its great object is to reconcile with the conclu- 
sions of our reason those moral feelings which are so 
essential, both to our own happiness and to the interests of 
society, that they have been regarded by some of the 
most acute as well as candid partisans of necessity as 
merciful illusions of the imagination, by which man is 
blinded to the melancholy fact of his real condition : 
" J^ervis alienis mobile lignum ! " 

There is good reason to believe that the practical con- 
sequences produced by the scheme of necessity at the 
time of the Reformation alarmed the minds of some very 
able men by whom it was at first adopted. " The Ger- 
mans," says Dr. Burnet, " saw the ill effects of the doc- 
trine of decrees. Luther changed his mind about it, and 
Melancthon wrote openly against it ; and since that time 
the whole stream of the Lutheran churches has run the 
other way. But still Calvin and Bucer were both for 
maintaining the doctrine ; only they warned the people not 
to think much about them, since they were secrets that 
men could not penetrate into. Hooper and many other 
good writers did often exhort the people from entering 
into these curiosities ; and a caveat to the same purpose 
was put into the article about predestination."* 

" Concerning the disputants themselves," says Dr. 
Jortin, "we may safely affirm, that the defenders of the 
liberty of man, and of the conditional decrees of God, 
have been, beyond all comparison, the more learned, judi- 
cious, and moderate men ; and that severity and oppression 
have appeared most on the other side." f 

Priestley has somewhere very justly remarked, that 
there are some men so happily born that no speculative 
theories are likely to mislead them from their duty ; and 
of the truth of his observation I sincerely believe that 
his own private life afforded a very striking example. 
Little stress, therefore, is to be laid on individual cases 
as arguments for or against the practical tendency of any 

* Burnet on the Reformation, Part II. p. 113. 
t Six Dissertations, Diss. I. p. 4. 



296 FREE AGENCY. 

philosophical dogma. The case, however, is very dif- 
ferent with respect to observations made on so great a 
scale as those above quoted from Bernier and Burnet. 
Let me add, that the practical influence of the scheme of 
necessity ought not to be judged of from the lives of its 
speculative partisans, but from those of persons who have 
been educated from their early years in the belief of it. 
In this point of view, it might be interesting to trace the 
history of the immediate descendants of some of the most 
zealous advocates for necessity. If the principles which 
they have advanced be just, particularly those they have 
laid down on the influence of education, the moral char- 
acters of their pupils should, or rather must^ be exemplary 
in no common degree. 

Section V. 

ON THE ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY DRAWN FROM THE 
PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 

I. The Argument stated and answered.'] In reviewing 
the arguments that have been advanced on the opposite 
sides of this question, I have hitherto taken no notice of 
those which the necessitarians have founded on the pres- 
cience of the Deity., because I do not think them fairly 
applicable to the subject ; inasmuch as they draw an in- 
ference from what is altogether placed beyond the reach 
of our faculties, against a fact for which every man has 
the evidence of his own consciousness. Some of the ad- 
vocates, however, for liberty have ventured to meet their 
adversaries even on this ground ; in particular. Dr. Clarke, 
in his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, 
and Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Active Powers ofJMan. 
Both of these writers have attempted to show, with much 
ingenuity and subtilty of reasoning, that, even although we 
should admit the prescience of God in the fullest extent in 
which it has ever been ascribed to him, it does not lead to 
any conclusion inconsistent with man's free agency. On 
their speculations on this point I have no commentary to 
offer. 

The argument for necessity, drawn from the Divine 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 297 

prescience, is much insisted on both by Collins and Ed- 
wards ; more especially by the latter, who, after insisting 
at great length on " God's certain foreknowledge of the 
volitions of moral agents," undertakes to show that " this 
foreknoicleclge infers a necessity of volition as much as an 
absolute decree." 

Mr. Belsham, on this as on other occasions, rises above 
his predecessors in the boldness of his assertions. " The 
principal argument in favor of moral necessity, and the in- 
surmountable objection against the existence of philosophi- 
cal liberty in any degree, or under any restrictions what- 
ever, arises from the prescience of God. Liberty and 
prescience stand in direct hostility to each other. A phi- 
losopher, to be consistent, must give up one or the other." 
" Upon the whole, the advocates for philosophical liberty 
are reduced to the dilenima, either of denying the fore- 
knowledge of God, and thus robbing the Deity of one of 
his most glorious attributes, or of admitting that God is 
the author of evil, in the same sense, and in the same de- 
grees, in which this doctrine is charged upon the necessa- 
rians." * 

On this argument I shall make but one remark, that, 
if it be conclusive, it only serves to identify still more the 
creed of the necessitarians with that of Spinoza. For if 
God certainly foresees all the future volitions of his crea- 
tures, he must, for the same reason, foresee all his oxen 
future volitions ; and if this foreknowledge infers a neces- 
sity of volition in the one case, how is it possible to avoid 
the same inference in the other .'' Mr. Belsham seems to 
have been not unaware of this inference ; but shows no 
disposition, on account of it, to shrink from his principles. 
" It is always to be remembered that the prescience of an 
agent necessarily includes predestination, though that of a 
spectator may not. It is nonsense to say that a being 
does not mean to bring an event to pass which he foresees 
to be the certain and inevitable consequence of his own 
previous voluntary action." f 

I have already mentioned the attempt of Clarke and 
others to show that no valid argument against the scheme 

* Elements, pp. 293, 302. t Elements, p. 307. 



298 FREE AGENCY. 

of free-will can be deduced from the prescience of God, 
even supposinji; that prescience to extend to all the actions 
of voluntary beings. On this point I must decline offer- 
ing any opinion of my own, because I conceive it as 
placed far beyond the reach of our faculties. It is suf- 
ficient for my purpose to observe, that, if it could be 
demonstrated (which, in my opinion, has not yet been 
done) that the prescience of the volitions of moral agents 
is incompatible with the free agency of man, the logical in- 
ference would be, not in favor of the scheme of necessity, 
but that there are some events the foreknowledge of 
which implies an impossibility. Shall we venture to 
affirm that it exceeds the power of God to permit such a 
train of contingent events to take place, as his own fore- 
knowledge shall not extend to .'' Does not such a propo- 
sition detract from the omnipotence of God, in the same 
proportion in which it aims to exalt his omniscience .'' * 

* The strength of Edwards's argument to prove that " no future event 
can be certainly foreknown, whose existence is contingent, and with- 
out all necessity," may be summed up in the following syllogism : — 

It is impossible for a thing to be certainly known to any intellect 
without evidence. 

A contingent future event is without evidence. 

Therefore, a contingent future event is a thing impossible to be cer- 
tainly known. 

Mr. Tappaa sa}'s: — "I dispute both premises. That which is 
known by evidence or proof is mediate knowledge ; — that is, we know 
it through something which is immediate, standing between the faculty 
of knowledge and the object of knowledge in question. That which is 
known intuitively is known loithunt proof ; and this is immediate knowl- 
edge. In this way all axioms or first truths, and all facts of the senses, 
are known. Indeed, evidence itself implies immediate knowledge, for 
the evidence by which any thing is known is nYsc/f immediate knowl- 
edge. To a Being, therei^re, whose knowledge fills duration, future 
and past events may be as immediately known as present events. In- 
deed, can we conceive of God otherwise than as immediately knowing 
all things.'' An Infinite and Eternal Intelligence cannot be thought of 
under relations of time and space, or as arriving at knowledge through 
media of proof or demonstration. So much for the first premise. The 
second is equally untenable: — ' A contingent future event is without 
evidence.' We grant with Edwards that it is not self-evident, imply- 
ing by that the evidence urisins from ' the necessity of its nature,'' as, for 
example, 2X2 = 4. What is self-evident [from being immediately 
perceived] does not require any [other] evidence or proof, but is knoicn 
immediately ; and a future contingent event may be self-evident [in this 
sense] as a fact lying before the Divine mind reaching into futurity, 
although it cannot be self-evident from ' the necessity of its nature.' " — 
Review of Edwards, p. 256. 

The following remarks on the same subject are from Dr. Copleston's 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 299 

IT. Source of the General Prevalence of Fatalism among 
Unenlightened Aah'ons.] It is a circumstance not a little 
curious in the history of the human mind, that, while men 
have been in all ages impressed with this irresistible con- 
viction of their own free agency, they have nevertheless 
had a proneness, not only to admit the prescience of God 
in its fullest extent, but to suppose that there is 2i fatal and 
irresistible destiny attending every individual. Traces of 
this opinion occur in every country of the world of which 
we have received any account. We meet with it among 
the sages of Greece, and among the ignorant and unen- 
lightened natives of St. Kilda. The following Arabian 
tale, which I quote from the late Mr. Harris, will place 
the import of the doctrine I now allude to in a more strik- 
ing light than I could possibly do by any philosophical 
comment. 

" The Arabians tell us," says this author, "that as 
Solomon (whom they supposed a magician from his supe- 
rior wisdom) was one day walking with a person in Pal- 
estine, his companion said to him with horror, ' What 

Inquiry into the Doctrines of Necessity and Predestination^ p. 45, note. 
" Edwards, in his work on tiie Freedom of the (Vill, dwells much upon 
the distinction between making the event necessary, s^nA ■proving it to 
be necessary. ' Whether prescience,' he says, 'be the thing that makes 
the event necessary or no. it alters not the case. Infallible foreknowl- 
edge may prove the necessity of the event foreknown, and j'et not be 
the thing that causes the necessity.' Part II. Sect. xii. But infallible 
foreknowledge, while it remains foreknowledge, -proves nothing. When 
the being which possesses this foreknowledge declares that a thing will 
come to pass, that declaration indeed proves, or is a certain ground of 
assurance to us, that it wiil come to pass. Even then it does not prove 
the event to he necessary. 

" If, however, the question be regarded as merely logical, namely, 
whether the very iexm foreknowledge does not imply a necessity in the 
thing foreknown, it must be decided by the established use of words. 
That such is not the received definition of the term may, I believe, be 
with confidence asserted ; and the confusion, whenever it does prevail, 
seems to arise from the following cause. We may be unable to conceive 
how a thing not necessary in its nature can be foreknown ; for our fore- 
knowledge is in general limited by that circumstance, and is more or 
less perfect in proportion to the fixed or necessary nature of the things 
we contemplate, with which nature we become acquainted by experi- 
ence, and are thus able to anticipate a great variety of events ; but to 
subject the knowledge of God to any such limitation is surely absurd 
and unphilosophical, as well as impious; and, therefore, to mix up the 
idea of God's foreknowledge with any quality in the nature of the 
things foreknown is even less excusable than to be guilty of that con- 
fusion when speaking of ourselves." — Ed. 



300 FREE AGENCY. 

hideous spectre Is that which approaches us ? I don't Hke 
his visage. Send me, I pray thee, to the renaotest moun- 
tain of India.' Solomon complied, and the very moment 
he was sent off the spectre arrived. ' Solomon,' said the 
spectre, ' how came that fellow here ? I was to have 
fetched him from the remotest mountain of India.' Sol- 
omon answered, ' Angel of Death, thou wilt find him 
there. ^ " * 

The general prevalence of fatalism among unenhghtened 
nations is the obvious effect of the insidious lessons incul- 
cated by their religious instructors. The chief expedient 
employed by the priesthood in all rude countries for sub- 
jecting the minds of the people is to impress them with 
a belief that it is possible, by the study of auguries, of 
omens, or of judicial astrology, to gratify that misguided 
curiosity which disposes blind mortals anxiously to tear 
asunder the merciful veil drawn by Providence over futu- 
rity. " Wherever superstition," says Dr. Robertson, 
" is so established as to form a regular system, this desire 
of penetrating into the secrets of futurity is connected 
with it. Divination becomes a religious act ; and priests, 
as the ministers of Heaven, pretend to deliver its oracles 
to man. They are the only soothsayers, augurs, and ma- 
gicians who possess the sacred and important art of dis- 
closing what is hid from other eyes."f 

III. J^o Dogma sufficient to efface the Consciousness 
of Moral Liberty.] Between this creed and that of an 

* Philosophical Inquiries, Part III. Chap. vii. The following re- 
mark of M. Ancillon upon the difference between the Mahometan 
doctrine of destiny, and that which prevailed upon the same subject 
among the ancient Greeks, appears to me just and important. "11 y a 
une grande difference entre le destin des Orientaux, surtout depuis que 
Mahomet a fait, d'une doctrine generalement repandue avant lui, un 
article de foi, et le Polytheisme Grec. Le Grec lutte contre le destin, 
et tout en succombant sous sa force, il fait preuve de liberte : le Ma- 
hometan se r6signe en aveugle avant I'evenement ; lors meme qu'il 
agit, il agit en homme a qui Taction ne servira de rien. Le premier 
murmure contre ce pouvoir, et le supporte avec impatience ; le second 
s'en felicite parce qu'il dispense de I'activite. Les Grecs plaqoient la 
force aveugle dans le destin ; et la pensee qui lui resiste, et qui le com- 
bat, dans I'homme ; chez les Mahometans la force aveugle est dans 
1 'homme ; cette force n'est qu'une force passive, et la pensee est dans le 
destin." — Essais Philosophiques, Tome L pp. 150, 151. 

t History of America, Book IV. 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 301 

inevitable fate or destiny the connection is necessary and 
obvious ; and hience in every false religion the scheme of 
fatalism may be expected to form, not only an essential, 
but the fundamental article. The inconsiderable influence 
which this theological dogma (a dogma, too, peculiarly 
calculated to affect and even to overwhelm the imagina- 
tion) has always had in stifling the sentiment of remorse 
on the commission of a crime, affords a demonstrative 
proof of the impotence of such scholastic refinements, when 
opposed to the feelings of nature, on a question concern- 
ing which these feelings form the only tribunal to which a 
legitimate appeal can be made. That a criminal, in order 
to alleviate the pang of remorse, may have sometimes 
sought for relief in this doctrine, is far from being improba- 
ble ; but no man ever acted on this belief in the common 
concerns of human life ; and, indeed, some of its most 
zealous partisans have acknowledged, (particularly Lord 
Kames,) that, were it to prevail universally as a practical 
principle, the business of the world could not possibly go on. 
In the ancient Stoical system, (as I have already ob- 
served,) the doctrine of fatalism and that of man's free 
agency were both admitted as fundamental articles of be- 
lief. " By fate," says Mrs. Carter, " the Stoics seem to 
have understood a series of events appointed by the im- 
mutable councils of God, or that law of his providence by 
which he governs the world. It is evident by their writ- 
ings that they meant it in no sense which interferes with 
the liberty of human actions." Of the truth of this re- 
mark the most satisfactory evidence is aff^orded by the 
very first sentence of the Enchiridion of Epictetus, in 
which it is explicitly stated, that " opinion, pursuit, de- 
sire, and aversion, and, in one word, whatever are our own 
actions, are in our own power." * 

* That the doctrine of fatalism, however, led some of the Stoics to 
very impious and alarming consequences, appears from the following 
words, which Lucan puts into the mouth of Cato. 

"Summum Brute nefas civilia bella fatemur, 
Sed quo fata trahunt, virtus secura sequetur. 
Crimen erit svpeiis et me fecisse nocentem." 

Phar. II. 254. 

See, also, Lib. VII. 657. — Copleston, Prcelect. Jcad., p. 277. 

26 



302 FREE AGENCY. 

Such, too, is the philosophy of Virgil : — 

" Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus 
Omnibus est vitas ; sed famaiu extendere faclis 
Hoc virtutis opus." * 

The doctrine, however, of fatahsm, and of an inevitable 
destiny, must not be confounded with that of the Divine 
prescience, between which and the freedom of human ac- 
tions some of our profoundest philosophers, as I have 
already observed, (particularly Clarke and Reid,) have 
labored to show that there is no inconsistency, while other 
writers of no less eminence have apprehended that there 
is no absurdity in supposing that the Deity may, for wise 
purposes, have chosen to open a source of contingency in 
the voluntary actions of his creatures, to which no pres- 
cience can possibly extend. 

Whatever opinion we may adopt on this point, the con- 
clusions formerly stated concerning man's free agency re- 
main unshaken. Our own free-will we know by our con- 
sciousness ; and we can have no evidence for any other 
truth so irresistible as this. On the other hand, it would 
unquestionably be rash and impious in us, from the fact of 
our own free-will, to deny that our actions may be fore- 
seen by the Deity, or to measure the Divine attributes by 
a standard borrowed from our imperfect faculties. The 
conclusion of St. Augustine on this subject is equally 
pious and philosophical. " Wherefore w^e are nowise re- 
duced to the necessity, either by admitting the prescience 
of God, to deny the freedom of the human will, or by 
admitting the freedom of the will to hazard the impious 
assertion, that the prescience of God does not extend to 
all future contingencies : but, on the contrary, we are dis- 

* JEneid, Lib. X. 467. 

" To all that breathe is fixed the appointed date ; 
Life is but short, and circumscribed hy fate : 
'T is virtue's work by fanie to stretch the span, 
Whose scanty limit bounds the days of man." 

The notions of Virgil, however, on this point, as is well observed 
by Servius, do not seem to have been quite consistent. How are the 
following lines, which he applies to Dido, to be reconciled with the 
above passage ? 

" Nam quia nee fato, merita nee morte peribat; 
Sed misera ante diem." — Idem, Lib. IV. 695. 



PRESCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 303 

posed to embrace both doctrines, and with sincerity to 
bear testimony to their truth, — the one that our faith 
may be sound, the other that our lives may be good.''''* 

* The following passage in one of Gray's letters hns a sufficient con- 
nection with what is said above to justify me in giving it a place here. 
Indeed, were the connection much slighter and less obvious than it 
is, little apology would be necessary for relieving the attention of the 
reader by quoting any thing relating to so important a subject from such 
a pen. 

" I am as sorry as you seem to be, that our acquaintance harped so 
much on the subject of materialism when I saw him with you in town, 
because it was plain to whicii side of the long-debated question he in- 
clined. That we are, indeed, mechanical and dependent beings, T need 
no other proof than my own feelings ; and from the same feelings 1 
learn with equal conviction, that we are not merely such. That there 
is a power within v\^hich struggles against the force and bias of that 
mechanism, commands its motion, and by frequent practice reduces it 
to that ready obedience we call habit; and all this in conformity to a 
preconceived opinion (no matter whether right or wrong), — to that least 
material of all agents, a thought. I have known many in his case, 
who, while they thought they were conquering an old prejudice, did 
not perceiv« that they were under the influence of one far more danger- 
ous, — one that furnishes us with a ready apology for all our worst actions, 
and opens to us a full license for doing whatever we please; and yet 
these very people were not at all the more indulgent to other men (as 
they naturally should have been) ; their indignation at such as offended 
them, their desire of revenge on any body that liurt them, was nothing 
mitigated. In short, they wished to be persuaded of that opinion for 
the sake of its convenience, but were not so in their hearts ; and they 
would have been glad (as they ought in common prudence) that nobody 
else should think the same, for fear of the mischief that might ensue to 
themselves. His French author I never saw, but have read fifty in the 
same strain, and shall read no more. / con he icretched enough without 
thejn." — Works, by Mason, Letter XXXI. 

1 shall avail myself of this note to remark, that, on the subject of 
free-will, though Locke has thrown out many impr)rtant observations, 
he is on the whole more indistinct, undecided, and inconsistent, than 
might have been expected from his powerful mind, when directed to 
so important a question. This was probably owing to his own strong 
feelings in favor of man's moral liberty, combined with the deep im- 
pression left on his philosophical creed by the writings of Hobbes, and 
by the habits of intimacy and friendship in which he lived with the 
acutest and ablest of all necessitarians, Anthony Collins. That Locke 
conceived himself to be an advocate for free-will appears indisputably 
from many expressions in his chapter On Foiner ; and yet in that very 
chapter he has made various concessions to his adversaries, in which 
he seems to yield all that was contended for by Hobbes and Collins ; 
and accordingly, he is ranked, with some appearance of truth, by 
Priestley, with those who, while they opposed verbally the scheme of 
necessity, have adopted it substantially, without being aware of their 
mistake. 

[To the multitude of works cited or referred to in this chapter may 
be added the following: — Crombie's Essay on PhUosophical Kecessity ; 
Bray's Philosophy of JYecessity ; Cogan's Ethical Questions, Question 



BOOK III. 

OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF OUR DUTY. 

The different theories which have been proposed con- 
cerning the nature and essence of virtue have arisen 
chiefly from attempts to trace all the branches of our duty 
to one principle of action, such as a rational self-love, be- 
nevolence, justice, or a disposition to obey the will of God. 

In order to avoid those partial views of the subject 
which naturally take their rise from an undue love of sys- 
tem, the following inquiries proceed on an arrangement 
which has, in all ages, recommended itself to the good 
sense of mankind. This arrangement is founded on the 
different objects to which our duties relate. 1st. The 
Deity. 2d. Our Fellow-Creatures. And, od. Ourselves. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT THE DEITY. 

I. The Duty of Religious Consideration.'] It is 
scarcely possible to conceive a man capable of reflection, 
who has not, at times, proposed to himself the following 

IV. ; Sir T. C. Morgan's Sketches of tlic F/iilosophij of Morals, Chap. II. ; 
Bailey's Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, S,'C., Ejjsay III. ; Gregory's Es- 
say in Defence of Philosophical Lil/erty ; Bockshammer On the Freedom 
of the Human IV ill ; Ctiarma, Essai sur les Bases ct Ics Dereloppemens 
de la Moralite, Part. I. Sect, i , ii. ; Damiron, Psycliologie, Liv. I. Sect, 
ii. Chap. iii. ; Balhintyne's Examination of the Human Mind, Chap. III. ; 
Gibon, Cours de Pkilosovhie, Part. I. Oiap. xiii. ; Blakey's Essay show- 
ing the Intimate Connection betrceen our Notions of Moral Good and Evil 
and our Conceptions of the Freedom of the Divine and Human Wills ; 
Harvey's Examination of the Pelagian and ^^rminian Theory of Moral 
Agency ; Day's Inquiry respecting the Self -determining Pmrcr of the Will; 
Day's Examination of President Edwards' s Inquiry on the Freedom of 
the Will] 



DUTIES TO GOD. 305 

questions : — Whence am I ? and whence the innumerable 
tribes of plants and of animals which I see, in constant suc- 
cession, rising into existence ? Whence the beautiful fabric 
of this universe ? and by what wise and powerful Being were 
the principles of my constitution so wonderfully adapted 
to the various objects around me ? To whom am 1 in- 
debted for the distinguished rank which I hold in the crea- 
tion, and for the numberless blessings which have fallen to 
my lot ? And what return shall I make for this profusion 
of goodness ? The only return I can make is by accom- 
modating my conduct to the will of my Creator, and by 
fulfilling, as far as I am able, the purposes of my being. 

But how are these purposes to be discovered ? The 
analogy of the lower animals gives me here no informa- 
tion. They, too, as well as 1, are endowed with various 
instincts and appetites ; but their nature, on the whole, 
exhibits a striking contrast to mine. They are impelled 
by a blind determination towards their proper objects, and 
seem to obey the law of their nature in yielding to every 
principle which excites them to action. In my own spe- 
cies alone the case is different. Every individual chooses 
for himself the ends of his pursuit, and chooses the means 
which he is to employ for attaining them. Are all these 
elections equally good ? and is there no law prescribed to 
man ? I. feel the reverse. I am able to distinguish what 
is right from what is wrong ; what is honorable and be- 
coming from what is unworthy and base ; what is lauda- 
ble and mjoritorious from what is shameful and criminal. 
Here, then, are plain indications of the conduct I ought 
to pursue. There is a law prescribed to man as well as 
to the brutes. The only difference is, that it depends on 
my own will whether 1 obey or disobey it. And shall I 
alone counteract the intentions of my Maker, by abusing 
that freedom of choice v^hich he has been pleased to be- 
stow on me, by raising me to the rank of a rational and 
moral being .'' 

This is surely the language of nature ; and which could 
not fail to occur to every man capable of serious thought, 
were not the understanding and the moral feelings in some 
instances miserably perverted by religious and political 
prejudices, and in others by the false refinements of meta- 
26* 



306 DUTIES TO GOD. 

physical theories. How callous must be that heart which 
does not echo back the reflections which Mihon puts into 
the mouth of our first parent ! 

"Thou sun, said I, fair light, 
And thou, enlightened earth, so fresh and gay, 
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, 
And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell. 
Tell, if you saw, how came I thus, how here ; 
Not of myself; by some great maker then, 
In goodness, as in power, preeminent ; 
Tell me how I may know him, how adore. 
From whom I have, that thus I move and live. 
And feel that I am happier than I know." 

II. The Duty of Piety.'] If the Deity be possessed 
of infinite moral excellence, we must feel towards him, 
in an infinite degree, all those affections of love, gratitude, 
and confidence, which are excited by the imperfect worth 
we observe among our fellow-creatures. Now it is only by 
conceiving all that is benevolent and amiable in man raised 
to the highest perfection that we can form some faint 
notion of the Divine nature. To cultivate, therefore, an 
habitual love and reverence of the Supreme Bemg may 
be justly considered as the first great branch of morality ; 
nor is the virtue of that man complete, or even consistent 
with itself, in whose mind those sentiments of piety are 
wanting. 

Piety seems to be considered by Mr. Smith as founded 
in some degree on those principles of our nature which 
connect us with our fellow-creatures. The dejection of 
mind which accompanies a state of complete solitude ; 
the disposition we have to impart to others our thoughts 
and feelings ; the desire we have of other intelligent and 
moral natures to sympathize with our own, — all lead us, 
in the progress of reason and of moral perception, to 
establish gradually a mental intercourse with the Invisible 
Witness and Judge of our conduct. \n habitual sense 
of the Divine presence comes at last to be formed. In 
every object or event that we see, we trace the hand of 
the Almighty, and in the suggestions of reason and con- 
science, we listen to his inspirations. In this intercourse 
of the heart with God, (an intercourse which enlivens and 
gladdens the most desolate scenes, and which dignifies the 



DUTIES TO GOD. 307 

duties of the meanest station,) the supreme feUcity of our 
nature is to be found ; and till it is firmly estabhshed, 
there remains a void in every breast which nothing earthly 
can supply ; — a consideration which proves that religion 
has a foundation in the original principles of our constitu- 
tion, while it affords us a presage of that immortal happi- 
ness which Providence has destined to be the reward of 
virtue.* 

III. Religion necessary as a Support to Public and 
Private Virtue.] Although religion can with no pro- 
priety be considered as the sole foundation of morality, 
yet, when we are convinced that God is infinitely good, 
and that he is the friend and protector of virtue, this be- 
lief affords the most powerful inducements to the practice 
of every branch of our duty. It leads us to consider con- 
science as the vicegerent of God, and to attend to its sug- 
gestions as to the commands of that Being from whom we 
have received our existence, and the great object of whose 
government is to promote the happiness and the perfec- 
tion of his whole creation. 

These considerations not only are addressed to our 
gratitude, but awaken in the mind a sentiment of universal 
benevolence, and make us feel a relation to every part of 
the universe. In doing our duty, we conceive ourselves 
as fellow-workers with the Deity, and as willing instru- 
ments in his hands for promoting the benevolent purposes 
of his administration. This is that sublime sentiment of 
piety and benevolence which we meet with so often in the 
writings of the ancient Stoics. " Shall any one say," 
observes Antoninus, " ■• O beloved city of Cecrops ! ' 
and wilt not thou say, ' O beloved city of God ' .'' " 

In this manner it appears that a sense of religion is fa- 
vorable to the practice of virtue in two respects ; first, 
by leading us to consider every act of duty as an expres- 
sion of gratitude to God ; and, secondly^, as leading us to 
regard ourselves as parts of that universal system of which 
he is the Author and Governor. There is another re- 

* For a further consideration of this important subject, see Butler's two 
Sermons Upon Piety, or the Love of God. Also, his Analogy, Part. II. 
chap. i. — Ed. 



308 DUTIES TO GOD. 

spect in which it is calculated to influence our conduct 
very powerfully, as it is addressed to our hopes and fears. 
In this view religion is a species of authoritative law, en- 
forced by the most awful sanctions, and of which it is im- 
possible for us, by any art, to elude the penalties. In the 
case of the lower orders of men, who are incapable of 
abstract speculation, and whose moral feelings cannot be 
supposed to have received much cultivation, it is chiefly 
this view of religion, as addressed to their hopes and fears, 
that secures a faithful discharge of their duties as members 
of society. In vain would the civil magistrate attempt to 
preserve the order of society by annexing the penalty of 
death to heinous offences, if men in general apprehend- 
ed that there was nothing to be feared beyond the grave. 
And it is of importance to remark, that this observation 
applies with peculiar force to the lower orders, who have 
commonly much less attachment to life than their superi- 
ors. Of this truth, all wise legislators, both ancient and 
modern, have been aware, and have seen the necessity of 
maintaining a sense of religion among their fellows-citizens, 
as the most powerful of all supports to the political order. 
" Ut aliqua in vita formido improbis esset posita, apud 
inferos ejusmodi quaedam illi antiqui supplicia impiis con- 
stituta esse voluerunt ; quod videlicet intelligebant his re- 
motis, non esse mortem ipsam pertimescendam." * They, 
on the other hand, who have labored to loosen the bands 
of society, have found it necessary to begin with pervert- 
ing or destroying the natural sentiments of the mind with 
respect to a future retribution. In ages when the relig- 
ious principles of the multitude were too firmly riveted to 
be entirely eradicated, they have inculcated theological 

* Cic. Catil. IV. "For it was on this account that the ancients in 
vented those infernal punishments of the dead, to keep the wicked 
under some awe in this life, who, without them, would have no dread of 
death itself" 

With these views it is not surprising that some of the wisest of the 
heathen writers should have expressed themselves so very strongly con- 
cerning the guilt incurred by those who, by exposing to ridicule the 
fabulous mythology which formed the popular creed among their con- 
temporaries, endangered the authority of those moral principles which 
were identified with it in the vulgar belief There is good reason for 
thinking that the secret communicated to the initiated in the Eleusinian 
mysteries was the unity of God ; a truth too sublime to be disclosed at 



DUTIES TO GOD. 309 

dogmas subversive of moral distinctions, as in the case of 
the antinomian teachers during our own civil wars. In other 
and more recent instances, they have avowedly attempted 
to establish a system of atheism. So true is the old ob- 
servation, that the extremes of superstition and of infideli- 
ty unite in their tendency, and so completely verified are 
noio the apprehensions wliich were expressed eighty years 
ago by Bishop Butler, that the spirit of irreligion (which, 
in his time, was beginning to grow fashionable among the 
higher ranks) might produce some time or other political 
disorders similar to those which arose from religious fa- 
naticism in the preceding century. " Is there no danger 
that all this may raise somewhat like the levelling spirit 
upon atheistical principles, which, in the last age, prevailed 
upon enthusiastic ones, — not to speak of the possibility 
that different sorts of people may unite in it upon these 
contrary principles ? " * 

A prediction by a later writer of genius and discernment, 
and one well acquainted with the principles and manners 
of the world, is not unworthy of attention in the present 
times, in which we have seen it very remarkably verified 
in numberless instances. " I shall say nothing at present 
of the lower ranks of mankind. Though they have not 
yet got into the fashion of laughing at religion, and treat- 
ing it with scorn and contempt, and I believe are too seri- 
ous a set of creatures ever to come into it, yet we are 
not to imagine but that the contempt it is held in by those 
whose examples they are too apt to imitate will in time 
utterly shake their principles, and render them, if not as 
profane, at least as corrupt, as their betters. When this 
event happens, and we begin to feel the effects of it in 

once to the uninformed multitude, as it struck at tiie root of all those 
fables which were incorporated with their habits of thinking and feel- 
ing on the most important subjects. On this supposition we have a 
satisfactory explanation of a noted passage in Horace, between which 
and the preceding lines it seems not easy at first to trace any connection. 

Est et fideli tuta silentio 
J Merces. Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum 

Vulgarit arcanfe, sub iisdem 
Sit trabibus, fragilemve mecum 
Solvat phaselum. 

Carm. L. III. Ode ii. 
* Sermon preached before the House of Lords, January 30, 1740. 



310 DUTIES TO GOD. 

our dealings with them, those xoho have done the mischief 
will find the necessity at last of turning religious in their 
own defence, and (for want of a better principle) to set 
an example of piety and good morals for their own inter- 
est and convenience." * 

Nor is it merely in restraining men from grosser outra- 
ges, that a sense of religion operates as a compulsory law. 
Without a secret impression, (of which it is impossible 
that the human mind can divest itself,) that there is at all 
times an invisible witness of our thoughts, it is probable 
that the virtue of the best men would often yield to tempta- 
tion. Even amidst the darkness of the heathen world, 
Xenophon had recourse to this impression to account 
for the inflexible integrity of Socrates, when he sat as one 
of the judges in the celebrated trial of the naval command- 
ers. "Having taken," says Xenophon, "as was cus^ 
tomary, the senatorial oath, by which he bound himself to 
act in all things conformably to the laws, and arriving in 
his turn to be president of the assembly of the people, he 
boldly refused to give his suffVage to the iniquitous sen- 
tence which condemned the nine captains, being neither 
intimidated by the menaces of the great, nor the fury of 
the people, but steadily preferring the sanctity of an oath 
to the safety of his person. For he was persuaded the 
gods watched over the affairs of men, in a way altogether 
different from what the vulgar imagined ; for while these 
limited their knowledge to some particulars only, Socrates, 
on the contrary, extended it to all, firmly persuaded that 
they are everywhere present, and that every word, every 
action, nay, even our most retired deliberations, were open 
to their view." f 

In the last place, a sense of religion, where it is sincere, 
will necessarily be attended with a complete resignation of 
our own will to that of the Deity, as it teaches us to regard 
every event, even the most afflicting, as calculated to pro- 
mote beneficent purposes, which we are unable to com- 
prehend, and to promote, finally, the perfection and hap- 
piness of our own nature. This is the best, and, indeed, 
the only rational foundation of fortitude. Nay, it may be 

* Sterne's Sermons. i Memor. Lib. I. c. i. 



DUTIES TO GOD. 311 

safely affirmed, (as Socrates long ago observed in the 
Phcedo of Plato,) that whoever founds his fortitude on 
any thing else is only valiant through fear. In other 
words, he exposes himself to danger, merely from a re- 
gard to the opinion of others, and, of consequence, wants 
that internal principle of heroism which can alone arm the 
mind with patience under those misfortunes which it is 
condemned to bear in solitude, or under sorrows which 
prudence conceals from the public eye. But to the man 
who believes that every thing is ordered for the best, and 
that his existence and happiness are in the hands of a 
Being who watches over him with the care of a parent, 
the difficulties and dangers of life only serve to call forth 
the latent powers of the soul, by reminding him of the 
prize for which he combats, and of that beneficent Provi- 
dence by which the conflict was appointed. 

Safe in the hands of one disposing Power, 
Or in the natal or the mortal hour. 

IV. Religion the First" and Chief Branch of Moral 
Duty.'] The view which I have given of religion, as 
forming the first and chief branch of moral duty, and as 
contributing in its turn most powerfully to promote the 
practice of every virtue, is equally consonant to the spirit 
of the Sacred Writings, and to the most obvious dictates 
of reason and conscience ; and accordingly it is sanctioned 
by the authority of all those philosophers of antiquity 
who devoted their talents to the improvement and happi- 
ness of mankind. "It should never be thought," says 
Plato in one of his Dialogues, " that there is any branch 
of human virtue of greater importance than piety towards 
the Deity." The chief article of the unwritten laic 
mentioned by Socrates is, " that the gods ought to be wor- 
shipped." " This," he says, " is acknowledged every- 
where, and received by all men as the first command." * 
And to the same purpose Cicero, in the first book of his 
Offices, places in the first rank of duties those we owe 
to the immortal gods. " In ipsa communitate sunt gra- 
dus officiorum ex quibus, quid cuique prsestet, intelligi 

* Xen. Memor. Lib. IV. c. iv. 



312 DUTIES TO GOD. 

posslt : ut prima Diis immortalibus ; secunda, patriae ; 
tenia, parentibus, deinceps gradatim reliquis debeantur." * 

The elevation of mind which some of the most illustri- 
ous characters of antiquity derived from their religious 
principles, however imperfect and erroneous, and the 
weight which these principles gave them in their public 
and political capacity, are remarked by many ancient writ- 
ers ; and such, I apprehend, will be always found to be 
the case when the personal importance of the individual 
rests on the basis of public opinion. " But he," says 
Plutarch, "who was most conversant with Pericles, and 
most contributed to give him a grandeur of mind, and to 
make his high spirit for governing the popular assemblies 
more weighty and authoritative, — in a word, who exalted 
his ideas, and raised, at the same time, the dignity of his 
demeanour, — the person who did this ^vas Anaxagoras 
the Clazomenian, whom the people of that age reverenced 
as the first who made mind or intellect (in opposition to 
chance) a principle in the formation and government of 
the universe." f 

The extraordinary respect which the Romans, during 
their period of greatest glory, entertained for religion 
(false as their own system was in its mythological founda- 
tions, and erroneous in many of its practical tendencies) 
has been often taken notice of as one of the principal 
sources of their private and public virtues. " The Span- 
iards," says Cicero, " exceed us in numbers ; the Gauls 
in the glory of war ; but we surpass all nations in that 
wisdom by which we have learned that all things are gov- 
erned and directed by the immortal gods." 4: 

In the latter periods of their history, this reverence for 
religion, together with the other virtues which gave them 
the empire of the world, was in a great measure lost ; and 
we continually find their orators and historians drawing a 
melancholy contrast between the degeneracy of their man- 

* Lib. I. c. ult. "In society itselfour duties are of different degrees, 
in which the proper order of preference is readily understood : — first 
of all, our duties to the immortal gods; secondly, to our country ; third- 
ly, to our parents, and, after them, to other men in their several grada- 
tions." 

t Vit. Peric. 

I Oral, de Harusp. Respon. c. ix. 



DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 313 

ners and those of their ancestors. In the account which 
Livy has given of the consulate of Q. Cincinnatus, he 
mentions an attempt wiiich the tribunes made to persuade 
the people that they were not bound by their military oath 
to follow the consul to the field, because they had taken 
that oath when he was a private man. But, however 
agreeable this doctrine might be to their inclinations, and 
however strongly recommended to them by the sanction 
of their own popular magistrates, we find that their rever- 
ence for the religion of an oath led them to treat the doc- 
trine as nothing better than a cavil. Livy's reflection on 
this occasion is remarkable. " Nondum haec, quae nunc 
tenet seculum, negligentia Deum venerat : nee interpre- 
tando sibi quisque jusjurandum leges aptas faciebat, sed 
suos potius mores ad ea accommodabat." * 



CHAPTER II 



OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OUR FELLOW- 
CREATURES. 

Under this title it is not proposed to give a complete 
enumeration of our social duties, but only to point out 
some of the most important, chiefly with a view to show 
the imperfections of those systems of morals which at- 
tempt to resolve the whole of virtue into one particular 
principle. Among these, that which resolves virtue into 
benevolence is undoubtedly the most amiable ; but even 
this system will appear, from the following remarks, not 
only to be inconsistent with truth, but to lead to dangerous 
consequences. 

* Lib. III. c. XX. " But that disregard of the gods, which prevails 
in the present age, had not then taken place ; nor did every one, by 
his own interpretations, accommodate oaths and the laws to his par- 
ticular views, but rather adapted his practice to them." 

27 



314 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Section I. 

OF BENEVOLENCE. 

I. Hutcheson resolves all Virtue into Benevolence.] 
Benevolence is so important a branch of virtue, that it 
has been supposed by some moralists to constitute the 
whole of it. According to these writers, good-will to 
mankind is the only immediate object of moral approba- 
tion ; and the obligation of all our other moral duties arises 
entirely from their apprehended tendency to promote the 
happiness of society. 

Among the most eminent partisans of this system in 
modern times, Mr. Smith mentions particularly Dr. Ralph 
Cudworth, Dr. Henry More, and Mr. John Smith of 
Cambridge ; "but of all its patrons," he observes, " an- 
cient or modern. Dr. Francis Hutcheson was undoubted- 
ly beyond all comparison the most acute, the most distinct, 
the most philosophical, and, what is of the greatest con- 
sequence of all, the soberest and most judicious." * 

In favor of this system, Mr. Smith acknowledges that 
there are many appearances in human nature which at first 
sight seem strongly to support it ; and of some of these 
appearances Dr. Hutcheson avails himself with much 
acuteness and plausibility. First, whenever, in any action 
supposed to proceed from benevolent affections, some 
other motive is discovered, our sense of the merit of this 
action is just so far diminished as this motive is believed 
to have influenced it. Secondly, when those actions, on 
the contrary, which are commonly supposed to proceed 
from a selfish motive are discovered to have arisen from a 
benevolent one, it generally enhances our sense of their 
merit. Lastly, it was urged by Dr. Hutcheson, that, in 
all casuistical disputes concerning the rectitude of conduct, 
the ultimate appeal is uniformly made to utility. In the 
later debates, for example, about passive obedience and 
the right of resistance, the sole point in controversy among 
men of sense was, whether universal submission would 
probably be attended with greater evils than temporary in- 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. Sect. ii. chap. iii. 



BENEVOLENCE. 315 

surrections when privileges were invaded. Whether what, 
upon the whole, tended most to the happiness of mankind 
was not also morally good, was never once made a question. 

Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive which 
could bestow upon any action the character of virtue, the 
greater the benevolence which was evidenced by any ac- 
tion, the greater the praise which must belong to it. 

In directing all our actions to promote the greatest pos- 
sible good, — in submitting all inferior affections to the de- 
sire of the general happiness of mankind, — in regarding 
one's self as but one of the many, whose prosperity was to 
be pursued no further than it was consistent with, or con- 
ducive to, that of the whole, — consisted the perfection of 
virtue. 

Dr. Hutcheson held, further, that self-love was a princi- 
ple which could never be virtuous in any degree or in any 
direction. This maxim he carried so far as to assert, that 
even a regard to the pleasure of self-approbation, to the 
comfortable applauses of our own consciences, diminishes 
the merit of a benevolent action. " In the common judg- 
ments of mankind, however," says Mr. Smith, "this re- 
gard to the approbation of our own minds is so far from 
being considered as what can in any respect diminish the 
virtue of any action, that it is rather looked upon as the 
sole motive which deserves the appellation of virtuous." 

Of the truth and correctness of these principles Dr. 
Hutcheson was so fully convinced, that, in conformity to 
them, he has offered some algebraical formulas for comput- 
ing mathematically the morality of actions. Of this very 
extraordinary attempt the following axioms, which he pre- 
mises to his formulas, may serve as a sufficient specimen. 

1. The moral importance of any agent, or the quantity 
of public good produced by him, is in a compound ratio 
of his benevolence and abilities, or M (moment of good) 
= B X A. 

2. In like manner the moment of private good or in- 
terest produced by any person to himself is in a com- 
pound ratio of his self-love and ability, or 1= S X A. 

3. When, in comparing the virtue of two agents, the 
abilities are equal, the moment of public good produced 
by them in like circumstances is as the benevolence, or 
M = Bx 1. 



316 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

4. When benevolence in two agents is equal, and other 
circumstances alike, the moment of public good is as the 
abilities, or M = A X 1. 

5. The virtue, then, of agents, or their benevolence, 
is always directly as the moment of good produced in like 
circumstances, and inversely as their abilities, or B = '^-* 

II. Objections to this Theory.] As Dr. Hutcheson's 
example in the use of these formulas has not been follow- 
ed by any of his successors, it is unnecessary to employ 
any arguments to expose the absurdity of this unsuccessful 
innovation in the usual language of ethics. f It is of more 
consequence to direct our attention to the substance of 
the doctrine which it was the groat object of the ingenious 
author to establish. 

And, in the first place, the necessary and obvious con- 
sequences to which this account of virtue leads seem to 
furnish a satisfactory proof of its unsoundness. For if 
the merit of an action depends on no other circumstance 
than the quantity of good intended by the agent, then the 
rectitude of an action can in no case be influenced by the 
mutual relations of the parties ; — a conclusion contradicted 
by the universal judgment of mankind in favor of the par- 
amount obligation of various other duties. It is sufficient 
to mention the obligations of gratitude, of veracity, and of 
justice. I Unless we admit these duties to be immediately 
obligatory, we must admit the maxim, that a good end 
may sanctify any means necessary for its attainment ; or, 
in other words, that it would be lawful for us to dispense 
with the obligations of veracity and justice whenever, by 
doing so, we had a prospect of promoting any of the es- 
sential interests of society. 

With respect to this maxim, I would only ask. Is it 
probable, a priori., that the wise and beneficent Author 
of the universe should have left the conduct of such a 

* Hutcheson's Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and 
Virtue, Treatise II. Sect. iii. 

t Dr. Hutcheson's attempt to introduce the language of mathematics 
into morals gave occasion to a valuable Essay on Quantity, by the late 
Dr. Reid. This essay may be found in the PJiltosophicul Transactions 
of the Royal Society of London for the year 1748. [It is reprinted in 
Sir W. Hamilton's edition of Dr. Reid's XV^orks.] 

t See Butler's Essay on tlie A''alureof Virtue, at the end of his Analogy. 



BENEVOLENCE. 317 

fallible and shortsighted creature as man to be regulated 
by no other principle than the private opinion of each in- 
dividual with respect to the expediency of his actions ? 
Or, in other words, by the conjectures which the indi- 
vidual might form on the good or evil resulting, on the 
whole^ from an endless train of future contingencies ? 
Were this the case, the opinions of mankind concerning 
the rules of morality would be as various as their judg- 
ments concerning the probable issue of the most doubtful 
and difficult determination in politics. Numberless cases 
might be fancied, in which a person would not only claim 
merit to himself, but actually possess it, in consequence 
of actions which are generally regarded with indignation 
and abhorrence. Even men of the soundest judgment and 
most penetrating sagacity might frequently be led to the 
perpetration of enormities, if they had no other standard 
of right and wrong but what they derived from their own 
uncertain anticipations of futurity. And when we con- 
sider how small the number of such men is, in compari- 
son of those whose understandings are perverted by the 
prejudices of education, and by their own selfish passions, 
it is easy to see what a scene of anarchy the world would 
become. Surely, if the Deity intended the happiness of 
his creatures, he would not build the order (I may say 
the existence) of society on so precarious a foundation. 
And here it deserves particularly to be mentioned, that 
one of the arguments commonly produced in support of 
the scheme is drawn from the benevolence of God. Be- 
nevolence, we are told, induced the Deity to call the uni- 
verse into existence, and benevolence is the great law of 
his government ; and as virtue in man must consist in con- 
formity to the will of God, in imitating his moral perfec- 
tions to the utmost of our power, it is concluded that 
virtue and benevolence are the same. But the premises 
here lead to a conclusion directly opposite ; for if the 
happiness of mankind be the great end for which they 
are brought into being, it is presumable that the rules of 
their conduct are of such a nature as to be obvious to the 
capacities of all men of sincere and well-disposed minds. 
Accordingly, we find, (and the fact is in a peculiar degree 
worthy of attention,) that, while the theory of ethics in- 
27* 



318 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

volves some of the most abstruse questions which have 
ever employed the human facuhies, the moral judgments 
and moral feelings of the most distant ages and nations, 
with respect to all the most essential duties of life, are one 
and the same.* 

The reasonableness of the foregoing conclusion will be 
much confirmed, if we consider how much the happiness 
of mankind is often left to depend on the will of one or of 
a few individuals. The best men, in such circumstances, 
when invested with absolute power, might be rendered 
curses to the world by sanguine plans of beneficence ; 
and the ambitious and designing would be supplied with 
specious pretences to justify the most cruel and tyrannical 
measures. In truth, it is this very plea of benevolent in- 
tention which has been employed to palliate, or rather to 
sanctify, the conduct of the greatest scourges of the human 
race. It is this very plea which, in former times, lighted 
up the fires of the Inquisition, and which, in our own age, 
has furnished a pretence for outrages against all the prni- 
ciples of justice and all the feelings of humanity.! 

It may perhaps be urged, that the principle of benevo- 
lence, or a regard to utility, would lead to an invariable 
adherence to the rules of veracity, gratitude, and justice ; 
because in this way more good is produced on the whole 
than could be obtained by any occasional deviations from 
them ; that it is this idea of utility which first leads us to 
approve of these virtues ; and that afterwards habit, or the 
association of ideas, makes us observe their rules without 
thinking of consequences. But is not this to adopt that 
mode of reasoning which Hutcheson censures so severely 
in the selfish philosophers .'' According to them, we labor 
to promote the public prosperity, because we believe our 
own to be intimately connected with it. They acknowl- 
edge, at the same time, that we often make a real sacrifice 
of private to public advantage, and that we often exert our- 
selves in the public service without once thinking of our 

* Si quid rectissimum sit quoerimus, perspicuum est. Si quid maxime 
expediat, obscurum. — Cic. £p. ad Fam., IV. 2. 

t See the remarks on Paley's scheme of morals in Gisborne's Prin- 
ciples of Moral Philosophy, where these arguments are urged with great 
force. [They are replied to by Wainewright, in his Vindication of Dr. 
Paley's Theory of Morals, Chap. 11] 



BENEVOLENCE. 319 

own interest. But all this they explain by habits and as- 
sociations, which operate in this case as they do in the case 
of the miser, who, although his attachment to money was 
originally founded on the consideration of its uses, yet 
continues to accumulate wealth without once thinking of 
the ends to which it is subservient, and indeed long after 
he is able to enjoy those comforts which it can purchase. 

Now, as I have said, the fallaciousness of this mode of 
reasoning has been pointed out by Dr. Hutcheson with 
great clearness and force ; and the arguments he employs 
against it may with great justice be turned against himself. 
In general, the safest rule we can follow in our inquiries 
concerning the principles of human conduct is to acquiesce, 
in the first instance, in the plain and obvious appearance 
of facts ; and if these conclusions are inaccurate, to cor- 
rect them gradually, in proportion as a more attentive ex- 
amination of our subject discovers to us the prejudices 
which education and accidental associations have blended 
with the truth. It is at least a presumption in favor of any 
system concerning the mind, that it falls in with the natural 
apprehensions of mankind in all countries and ages ; — and 
I believe it will commonly be found that these are the 
systems which, in the progress of human reason, are justi- 
fied by the most profound and enlightened philosophy. I 
state this observation with the greater confidence, as it 
coincides with the following admirable remark of Mr. 
Hume, — an author who had certainly no interest in in- 
culcating such a doctrine, as he seems to have paid very 
little attention to it in the course of his own speculations. 

" The case is not the same in moral philosophy as in 
physics. Many an hypothesis in nature, contrary to first 
appearances, has been found, on more accurate scrutiny, 
solid and satisfactory. Instances of this kind are so fre- 
quent that a judicious as well as witty philosopher * has 
ventured to affirm, if there be morethan one way in which 
a phenomenon may be produced, that there is a general 
presumption for its arisirig from the causes which are the 
least obvious and familiar. But the presumption always 
lies on the other side in all inquiries concerning the origin 
of our passions, and of the internal operations of the human 

* Fontenelle. 



320 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

mind. The simplest and most obvious cause which can 
there be assigned for any phenomenon is probably the true 
one. When a philosopher, in the explication of his sys- 
tem, is obliged to have recourse to some very intricate and 
refined reflections, and to suppose them essential to the 
production of any passion or emotion, we have reason to be 
extremely on our guard against so fallacious an hypothesis. 
The affections are not susceptible of any impression from 
the refinements of reason or in)agination ; and it is always 
found, that a vigorous exertion of the latter faculty neces- 
sarily, from the limited capacity of the human mind, de- 
stroys all activity in the former. Our predominant motive 
or interest is indeed frequently concealed from ourselves 
when it is mingled and confounded with other motives, 
which the mind, from vanity and self-conceit, is desirous 
of supposing more prevalent ; but there is no instance that 
a concealment of this nature has ever arisen from the ab- 
struseness and intricacy of the motive. A man that has 
lost a friend and patron may flatter himself that all his 
grief arises from generous sentiments, without any mixture 
of narrow or interested considerations ; but a man that 
grieves for a valuable friend who needed his patronage and 
protection, how can we suppose that his passionate ten- 
derness arises from some metaphysical regards to a self- 
interest which has no foundation in reality ? We may as 
well imagine that minute wheels and springs, like those of 
a watch, give motion to a wagon, as account for the origin 
of passion from such abstruse reflections." * 

Tir. The same Objections applicable to the Doctrine of 
Utility^ as held by Hume, Godwin, and Paley.~\ The 
remarks which I have now made with respect to Dr. 
Hulcheson's philosophy are applicable, with some slight 
alterations, to a considerable variety of moral systems 
which have been offered to the world under very different 
forms, but which agree with him and with each other in de- 
riving the practical rules of virtuous conduct from consid- 
erations of utility. All of these systems are but modifica- 
tions of the old doctrine which resolves the whole of virtue 
into benevolence. 

* Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix II. 



BENEVOLENCE. 321 

This theory of utility (which is of a very ancient date, 
and which in modern times has derived much celebrity 
from the genius of Mr. Hume) has been revived more re- 
cently by Mr. Godwin, and by the late Dr. Paley. Wide- 
ly as these two writers differ in the source whence they 
derive their rule of conduct, and the sanctions by which 
they enforce its observance, they are perfectly agreed 
about its paramount authority over every other principle 
of action. " Whatever is expedient.,^'' says Dr. Paley, 
" is right. It is the utility of any moral rule alone which 
constitutes the obligation of it." * " But then it must be 
expedient on the lohole, at the long run, in all its effects, 
collateral and remote, as well as those which are immedi- 
ate and direct, as it is obvious that, in computing conse- 
quences, it makes no difference in what way or at what 
distance they ensue." f Mr. Godwin has nowhere ex- 

* Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy^ Book II. Chap. vi. 

t Ibid. Chap.viii. In another part of this work, Book VI. Chap, xii., 
Dr. Paley explicitly asserts that every moral rule is liable to be super- 
seded in particular cases on the ground of expediency. " Moral Phi- 
losophy cannot pronounce that any rule of morality is so rigid as to 
bend to no exceptions; nor, on the other hand, can she comprise these 
exceptions within any previous description. She confesses that the 
obligation of every law depends upon its ultimate utility ; that this 
utility having a finite and determinate value, situations may be feign- 
ed, and consequently may possibly arise, in which the general tendency 
is outweighed by the enormity of the particular mischief." In such 
an event, ultimate utility would render it as much an act of duty to 
break the rule as it is on other occasions to observe it. 

[Some have contended that Paley's criterion of right is not liable to 
the same objections with that of other selfish systems, because he does 
not make it turn on a calculation of the probable consequences of the 
particular action in hand, but on what is called the doctrine of" general 
consequences." " The general consequence of any action may be esti- 
mated," he says, " by asking what would be the consequence if the 
same sort of actions were generally permitted." — Moral Philosophy, 
Book II. Chap.viii. But to this Coleridge, in The Friend, \q\.\\. Essay 
xi., replies : — 

1. " Here, as in all other calculations, the result depends on that 
faciilty of the soul in the degrees of which men most vary from 
each other, and which is itself most affected by accidental advantages 
or disadvantages of education, natural talent, and acquired knowl- 
edge, — the faculty, I mean, of foresight and systematic comprehen- 
sion. But surely morality, which is of equal importance to all men, 
ought to be grounded, if possible, in that part of our nature which in 
all men may and ought to be the same : in the conscience and the 
common sense." 

2. " This criterion confounds morality with law ; and when the au- 
thor adds, that in all probability the Divine justice will be regulated in 



322 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

pressed himself on this fundamental question of practical 
ethics in terms more decided and unqualified. 

Of this theory of utility, so strongly recommended to 
some by the powerful talents of Hume, and to others by 
the well-merited popularity of Paley, the most satisfactory 
of all refutations is to be found in the work of Mr. God- 
win. It is unnecessary to inquire how far the practical 
lessons he has inculcated are logically inferred from his 
fundamental principle ; for although I apprehend much 
might be objected to these, even on his own hypothesis, 
yet if such be the conclusions to which, in the judgment 
of so acute a reasoner, it appeared to lead with demon- 
strative evidence, nothing further is requisite to illustrate 
the practical tendency^ of a system which, absolving men 
from the obligations imposed on them with so command- 

the final judgment by a similar rule, he draws away the attention from 
the loiU, that is, from the inward motives and impulses which constitute 
the essence of morality, to the outward act, and thus changes the vir- 
tue commanded by the Gospel into the mere legality which was to be 
enlivened by it. One of the most persuasive, if not one of the strongest, 
arguments for a future state rests on the belief, that, although by the 
necessity of things our outward and temporal welfare must be regulated 
by our outward actions, which alone can be the objects and guides of 
human law, there must yet needs come a juster and more appropriate 
sentence hereafter, in which our intentions will be considered, and our 
happiness and misery made to accord with the grounds of our actions. 
Our fellow-creatures can only judge what we are by what we do; but 
in the eye of our Maker what we do is of no worth, except as it flows 
from what we are." 

3. " The criterion is also nugatory. The individual is to imagine 
what the general consequences loould be, all other things remaining 
the same, if all men were to act as he is about to act. I scarcely need 
remind the reader what a source of self-delusion and sophistry is here 
opened to a mind in a state of temptation. Will it not say to itself, ' I 
know that all men will not act so ; and the immediate good consequen- 
ces, which I shall obtain, are real, while the bad consequences are im- 
aginary and improbable ' .' When the foundations of morality have 
once been laid in the outward consequences, it will be in vain to recall 
to the mind what the consequences would be were all men to reason 
in the same wa}' ; for the verj' excuse of this mind to itself is, that nei- 
ther its action nor its reasoning is likely to have any consequences at 
all, its immediate object excepted." 

4. " But suppose the mind in its sanest state. How can it possibly 
form ;i notion of the nature of an action considered as indefinitely mul- 
tiplied, unless it has previously a distinct notion of the nature of the 
single action itself which is the multiplicand .' If I conceive a crown 
multiplied a hundred-fold, the simple crown enables me to understand 
what a hundred crowns are; but how can the notion hundred teach 
me what a crown is .-" " 



BENEVOLENCE. 323 

ing an authority by the moral constitution of human na- 
ture, abandons every individual to the guidance of his own 
narrow views concerning the complicated interests of 
political society. 

Among the practical consequences which Dr. Paley 
deduces from the same principle, there are some which to 
my mind are not less revolting than those of Mr. Godwin. 
Such, for example, is the argument by which he contro- 
verts the received maxim of criminal jurisprudence, that 
it is better for ten guilty persons to escape than for one 
innocent mart to suffer. But on this subject I need not 
enlarge. The sophistry, and, I am sorry to add, the 
reckless inhumanity displayed in this part of Paley's work, 
have been triumphantly exposed by that great and good 
man. Sir Samuel Romilly ; — a man whom, long before 

5. "I confess myself unable to divine any possible use, or even mean- 
ing, in this doctrine of general consequences, unless it be that in ail our 
actions we are bound to consider the eifect of our example, and to guard 
as much as possible against the hazard of their being misunderstood. I 
will not slaughter a lamb, or drown a litter of kittens, in the presence of 
my child of tour years old, because the child cannot understand my ac- 
tion, but will understand that his father has inflicted pain, and taken 
away life from beings that had never otfended him. All tliis is true, 
and no man in his senses ever thought otherwise. But methinks it is 
strange to state that as a criterion of morality which is no moi'e than an 
accessory aggravation of an action bad in its own nature, or a ground of 
caution as to the mode and time in which we are to do or suspend what 
is in itself good and innocent." 

6. " The duty of setting a good example is no doubt a most important 
duty ; but the example is good or bad, necessary or unnecessary, accord- 
ing as the action may be which has a chance of being imitated. 1 once 
knew a small, but (in outward circumstances at least) respectable con- 
gregation, four fifths of whom professed that they went to church en- 
tirely for the example's sake; in other words, to cheat each other and 
act a common lie ! These rational Christians had not considered that 
example may increase the good or evil of an action, but can never con- 
stitute either.'' 

7. " To the objection, that the doctrine of general consequences was 
stated as the criterion of the action, not of the agent, 1 might answer, 
that the author himself had in some measure justified me in not noticing 
this distinction by holding forth the probability, that the Supreme Judge 
will proceed by the same rule. The agent may then safely be includ- 
ed in the action, if both here and hereafter the action only and its gen- 
eral consequences will be attended to. But my main ground of justifi- 
cation is, that the distinction itself is merely logical, — not real and 
vital. The character of the agent is determined by his view of the 
action ; and that system of morality is alone true and suited to human 
nature, which unites the intention and the motive, the warmth and the 
light, in one and the same act of mind."] 



324 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

his talents and worth were known to the pubhc, I ad- 
mired and loved, and whose memory I shall never cease 
to revere.* 



* Observations on the Criminal Law of England. See, iii particular, 
Note D. 

[For some account of the writings and influence of Godwin, see the 
thirty-sixth Lecture of Professor Smyth, Oil ike French RecoluUon. He 
begins his notice by observing, with reference to the time of the first 
Frencii Revolution, — "I would wish to afford you some general notion 
of the sort of mental intoxication which then prevailed among those 
who should have been the guides and instructors of mankind. And 
looking round for this purpose, J shall select from the rest, as a memora- 
ble specimen of the whole, the once celebrated work of Mr. Godwin. 
The intluence of the work I can myself remember. In any ordinary 
state of the world, it must have fallen lifeless from the press; highly 
metaphysical, continually running into general abstractions, into dis- 
quisitions never ending, still beginning, nothing was ever less fitted to 
attract a reader than the repulsive Inquiry concerning Political Justice ; 
and if the state had not been out of joint, most assuredly scarce a reader 
would have been found. Some years after, when the success of the 
work had been established, Mr. Burke was asked whether he had seen 
it. ' Why, yes, I have seen it,' was the answer, 'and a mighty stupid- 
looking book it is.' No two words could better have described it. 
The late excellent Sir Samuel Romilly, who had then leisure to read 
every thing, told a friend who had never heard of it, that there had 
just appeared a book by far the most absurd that had ever come within 
his knowledge; this was the work of Godwin. Mrs. Barbauld, also, 
•who at length by the progress of its doctrines was compelled to look at 
it, declared that what was good in the book was chiefly taken from 
Hume ; that it was ' borrowed sense and original nonsense.' The work, 
however, prospered ; this' original nonsense ' was then in great request, 
and at a high premium. Mr. Godwin had his admirers, had his school; 
there were Godwinians in those days, as well as Whigs and Tories, 
more particularly in the Inns of Court, and among the young lawyers; and 
this borrower of sense and retailer of nonsense, this dreamer of dreams 
and seer of visions, was suddenly transformed from a dissenting clergy- 
man, dissatisfied with his profession, and unknov^ing and unknown, 
into a person pointed at, as he walked in the metropolis of England, as 
a disturber of empires and a reformer of the world." 

According to Mr. Godwin, every thing is to be referred to justice. 
General utility is the criterion of justice, and one of his extravagances 
consists in maintaining that all private aflTections and personal obliga- 
tions are to be sacrificed to it. Professor Smyth goes on : — 

" 'But justice,' says Mr. Godwin, ' is no respecter of persons' ; — very 
well. The illustrious Bishop of Cambraj^ for instance, was of more 
worth than his valet, and there are few of us, says Mr. Godwin, that 
would hesitate to pronounce, if the bishop's palace were in flames, 
wliich of the two should be preserved But again : — 

" ' Suppose I had been myself the valet,' says Mr. Godwin ; ' I ought 
to have chosen to die, rather than Fenelon should have died. To have 
done otherwise would have been a breach of justice.' Somewhat 
alarming this, but let it pass ; — very well. Again : — ' Suppose,' says 
Mr. Godwin, the valet had been my brother, or my father, or my bene- 



BENEVOLENCE. - 325 

That the practice of veracity and justice, and of all our 
other duties, is useful to mankind, is acknowledged by 
morahsts of all descriptions ; and there is good reason for 
believing, that, if a person saw all the consequences of 
his actions, he would perceive that an adherence to their 
rules is useful and advantageous on the whole, even in 

factor; — this would not alter the tnilh of the proposition: the life of 
Fenelon would still be more valuable thnn that of the valet ; and jus- 
lice, pure, unadulterat<;d justice, would still have preferred that which 
was most valuable; justice would have laught me to save the life of 
Fenelon at the expense of the other. What magic is there in the pro- 
noun my to overturn the decision of impartial truth ? My brother, or 
my father, maj^ be a fool or a profligate, malicious, lying, or dishonest. 
If they be, of what consequence is it that they are viim? ' 

"This, then, was the result that was wanted,— filial duty at an end. 
The poor father was to see his son helping another person out of the 
flames, and be left himself to perish ; — all upon the principle of justice, 
the foundation of all morality. Mathematicians, when their reasonings 
conduct them to some unnatural position, — that the greater is equal to 
the less, or the less to the greater, — immediately stop short, produce 
their phrase, quod est alisurdmn, and think it high time to begin again." 

The logic l)y which Godwin reasons away the obligation that exists 
between parent and child reminds Professor Smyth of the following 
passage in Tristram Shandy : — 

" In that most entertaining performance, the lawyers are supposed 
discussing a law question before Yorick and my uncle Toby. ' In the 
reign of Edward VI.,' says one of them, 'in the famous case, commonly 
known by the name of the Duke of Suffolk's case, as it was a great 
cause, and much depending upon its issue, and as many causes of great 
property were likely to be decided in times to come by the precedent 
to be then made, the most learned, as well in the laws of this realm as 
in the civil law, were consulted together; and not only the temporal 
lawyers but the church lawyers, tlie jurisconsult], the jurisprudentes, 
the civilians, the advocates, the commissaries, the judges of the con- 
sistory and prerogative courts of Canterbury and York, with the Master 
of the Faculties, were all unanimously of opinion, that the mother, the 
Duchess of Suffolk, was not of kin to her child.' 

" ' And what said the Duchess of Sufl'olk to it .'' ' said my Uncle Toby. 

This was an unexpected question, it seems; and as nothing could be 

■ made of it, the lawyers voted the order of the day, and went on with 

their law argument : this, when they had finished it, left the Duchess, 

as before, not of kin to her own child. 

"'Let the learned say what they will, there must certainly,' quoth 
my Uncle Toby, ' be some manner of consanguinity between the 
Duchess of Suffolk and her son.' 

" 'The vulgar are of the same opinion to this hour,' quoth Yorick." 

There is a remarkable coincidence in some of the definitions and 
speculations of Edwards and the Hopkinsian divines in this country, 
and those of Godwin. For references, see Ely's Contrast beticeen Cal- 
vinism and Hopldnsianisjn, Chap. XI. See likewise Robert Hall's cele- 
brated sermon. Modern Tnfidelily considered with respect to its Influence 
on Society ; and Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, especially the Notes.] 

28 



326 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

those cases in which his limited views incline him to think 
otherwise. The same observation may be applied to 
self-interest^ that the most effectual way of promoting it is 
to observe religiously the obligations of morality ; and 
these are both very striking instances of that unity of de- 
sign which is conspicuous alike in the moral and natural 
world. This makes it an easy matter for a philosopher 
to give a plausible explanation of all our duties from one 
principle, because the general tendency of all of them is to 
determine us to the same course of life. That benevo- 
lence may be the sole principle of action in the Deity is 
possible (although when we affirm that it is so we go be- 
yond our depth) ; but the case is obviously very different 
with mankind. If the hypothesis be just with respect to 
the Deity, we must suppose that he enjoined the duties 
of veracity and justice, not on account of their intrinsic 
rectitude, but of their utility. But still, with respect to 
man they are indispensable laws, for he has an immediate 
perception of their rectitude. And indeed, if he had not, 
but were left to deduce their rectitude from the conse- 
quences which they have a tendency to produce, we may 
venture to affirm that there would not be enough of virtue 
left in the world to hold society together. 

It is remarked by Mr. Smith, in a passage which cannot 
be too frequently recalled to the reader's attention, that 
" although, in accounting for the operations of bodies, we 
never fail to distinguish the efficient from the final cause, in 
accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to con- 
found these two different things with one another. When 
by natural principles we are led to advance those ends 
which a refined and enlightened reason would recommend 
to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to 
their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which 
we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the 
wisdom of man which in reality is the wisdom of God. 
Upon a superficial view, this cause seems sufficient to pro- 
duce the effects which are ascribed to it, and the system 
of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable 
when all its different operations are in this manner de- 
duced from a single principle." 



BENEVOLENCE. 327 

IV. Reasons which have induced some Winters to re- 
solve all Virtue into Benevolence. ~\ To the strictures 
already offered on Hutcheson's writings I have only to 
add, that he seems to consider virtue as a quality of our 
affections^ whereas it is really a quality of our actions ; or 
(perhaps in strict propriety) of those dispositions from 
which our actions immediately proceed. Our benevolent 
affections are always amiable, but, in so far as they are 
constitutional, they are certainly in no respect meritorious. 
Indeed, some of them are common to us with the brutes. 
When they are possessed in an eminent degree, we may 
perhaps consider them as a ground of moral esteem, be- 
cause they indicate the pains which has been bestowed on 
their cultivation, and a course of active virtue in which 
they have been exercised and strengthened. On the con- 
trary, a person who wants them is always an object of 
horror ; chiefly because we know they are only to be 
eradicated by long habits of profligacy, and partly in con- 
sequence of the uneasiness we feel when we see the ordi- 
nary course of nature violated, as in a monstrous animal 
production. It is from these two facts that the plausibility 
of Dr. Hutcheson's language on this subject in a great 
measure arises ; but if the facts be accurately examined, 
they will be found perfectly consistent with the doctrine 
already laid down, that nothing is an object of moral praise 
or blame, but what depends on our own voluntary exer- 
tions ; and of consequence, that these terms are not appli- 
cable to our benevolent or malevolent affections, so far as 
we suppose them to result necessarily from our constitu- 
tional frame. 

In order to think with accuracy on this very important 
point of morals, it is also necessary to distinguish those 
benevolent affections which urge us to their respective ob- 
jects by a blind impulse from that rational and enlightened 
benevolence which interests us in the happiness of all 
mankind, and indeed of all the orders of sensitive being. 
This divine principle of action appears but little in the 
bulk of our species ; for, although the seeds of it are 
sown in every breast, it requires long and careful cultiva- 
tion to rear them to maturity, choked as they are by 
envy, by jealousy, by selfishness, and by those contracted 



328 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

views which originate in unenhghtened schemes of human 
policy. Clear away these noxious weeds, and the genuine 
benevolence of the human heart will appear in all its beau- 
ty. No wonder, then, that we should regard with such 
peculiar sentiments of veneration the character of one 
whom we consider as the sincere and unwearied friend of 
humanity ; for such a character implies the existence of 
all the other virtues ; more particularly, candid and just 
dispositions towards our fellow-creatures, and a long course 
of persevering exertion in combating prejudice, and in 
eradicating narrow and malignant passions. The gratitude, 
besides, which all men must feel towards one in whose be- 
nevolent wishes they know themselves to be comprehend- 
ed, contributes to enliven the former sentiment of moral 
esteem ; and both together throw so. peculiar a lustre on 
this branch of duty, as goes far to account for the origin 
of those systems which represent it as the only direct ob- 
ject of moral approbation. 

It may be worth while to add, before leaving the sub- 
ject, that, when a rational and habitual benevolence forms 
part of a character, it will render the conduct perfectly 
uniform^ and will exclude the possibility of those incon- 
sistencies that are frequently observable in individuals who 
give themselves up to the guidance of particular affections, 
either private or public. How often, for example, do we 
meet with individuals, who have great pretensions to pub- 
lic spirit, and even to humanity, on important occasions, 
who affect an habitual rudeness in the common intercourse 
of society ! The public spirit of such men cannot possi- 
bly arise from genuine benevolence, otherwise the same 
principle of action would extend to every different part 
of the conduct by which the comfort of other men is af- 
fected ; and in the case of most individuals, the addition 
they are able to make to human happiness, by the constant 
exercise of courtesy and gentleness to all who are within 
the sphere of their influence, is of far greater amount than 
all that can result from the more splendid and heroic ex- 
ertions of their beneficence. A similar remark may be 
applied to such as are possessed of strong private attach- 
ments and of humanity to objects in distress, while they 
have no idea of public spirit ; and also to those who lay 



JUSTICE. 329 

claim to a more than common portion of patriotic zeal, 
while they avow a contempt for the general interests of 
humanity. In truth, all those offices, whether apparently 
trifling or important, which contribute to augment the hap- 
piness of our fellow-creatures, — civility, gentleness, 
kindness, humanity, patriotism, universal benevolence, — 
are only diversified expressions of the same disposition, 
according to the circumstances in which it operates, and 
the relation which the agent bears to others. 

Section II. 

OF JUSTICE. 

I. Definition and Origin of the Sense of Justice.'] The 
word justice., in its most extensive signification, denotes that 
disposition which leads us, in cases where our own temper, 
or passions, or interests are concerned, to determine and to 
act without being biased by partial considerations. 

I had occasion formerly to observe, that a desire of our 
own happiness is inseparable from our nature as sensitive 
and rational beings ; or, in other words, that it is impos- 
sible to conceive of a being capable of forming the ideas of 
happiness and misery, to whom the one shall not be an 
object of desire and the other of aversion. On the other 
hand, it is no less evident that this desire is a principle 
belonging to such beings exclusively ; inasmuch as the 
very idea of happiness, or of tohat is good for man on the 
whole., presupposes the exercise of reason in the mind 
which is able to perform it ; and as it is only a being pos- 
sessed of the power of self-government which can pursue 
steadily this abstract conception, in opposition to the so- 
licitations of present appetite and passion. This rational 
self-love (or, in other words, this regard to what is good 
for us on the whole) is analogous, in some important 
respects, to that calm benevolence which has been already 
illustrated. They are both characteristical endowments 
of a rational nature, and they both exert an influence over 
the conduct, in proportion as reason gains an ascendant 
over prejudice and error, and over those appetites which 
are common to us and to the brutes. 
28* 



330 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

The inferior principles of action in our nature have all 
a manifest reference to one or other of these rational prin- 
ciples ; for, although they operate without any reflection 
on our part, they ail lead to ends beneficial to the individ- 
ual or to society. Of this kind are hunger, thirst, the 
desire of knowledge, the desire of esteem, pity to the dis- 
tressed, natural affection, and a variety of others. Upon 
the whole, these two great principles of action, self-love 
and benevolence, coincide wonderfully in reconnnending 
one and the same course of conduct ; and we have great 
reason to believe, that, if we were acquainted with all the 
remote consequences of our actions, they would be found 
to coincide entirely. There are, however, cases in which 
there seems to be an interference between them ; and, in 
such cases, the generality of mankind are apt to be influ- 
enced more than they ought to be by self-love, and the 
principles which are subsidiary to it. These sometimes 
lead them to act in direct opposition to their sense oi' duty ; 
but much more frequently they influence the conduct by 
suggesting to ihe judgment partial and erroneous views of 
circumstances, and by persuading men that the line of 
their duty coincides with that which is prescribed by in- 
terest and inclination. Of all this every man capable of 
reflection must soon be convinced from experience, and 
he will study to correct his judgment in cases in which he 
himself is a party, either by recollecting the judgments 
he has formerly passed in similar circumstances on the con- 
duct of others, or by stating cases to himself, in which 
his own interest and predilections are perfectly left out of 
the question. Now I use the word justice to express 
that disposition of mind which leads a man, where his own 
interest or passions are concerned, to determine and to act 
according to those judgments which he would have formed 
of the conduct of another placed in a similar situation. 

But although I believe that expedients of this sort are 
necessary to the best of men for correcting their moral 
judgments in cases in which they themselves are parties, 
it will not therefore follow, (as 1 have before observed,*) 
that our ideas of right and wrong with respect to our own 
conduct are originally derived from our sentiments with 

* See pp. 232, 233. 



JUSTICE. 331 

respect to the conduct of others. If I had had recourse 
to no such expedient for correcting my first judgment, I 
should still have formed some judgment or other of a par- 
ticular conduct, as right, wrong, or indifferent, and the 
only difference would have been, that I should probably 
have decided improperly, from a false or a partial view of 
the case. 

It is observed by Mr. Smith, as an argument against 
the existence of a moral sense or moral faculty, that these 
words are of very recent origin, and that it must appear 
very strange that a principle, which Pj'ovidence undoubt- 
edly intended to be the governing one of human nature, 
should hitherto have been so little taken notice of, as not 
to have got a name in any language. If this observation 
is levelled merely at these two expressions, I do not 
take upon me to defend their propriety. I use them be- 
cause they are commonly employed by ethical writers 
of late, and because I do not think them liable to misin- 
terpretation after the explanation of them I formerly gave. 
I certainly do not consider them as expressing an im- 
planted relish for certain qualities of actions analogous to 
our relish for certain tastes and smells. All I contend 
for is, that the w'ords right and wrong, ought and ought 
not, express simple ideas ; that our perception of these 
qualities in certain actions is an ultimate fact of our na- 
ture ; and that this perception always implies the idea of 
moral obligation. When I speak of a moral sense or a 
moral faculty, I mean merely to express the power we have 
of forming these ideas; but I do not suppose that this 
bears any more analogy to our external senses than the 
power we have of forming the simple ideas of number, of 
time, or of causation, all which arise in the mind, we 
cannot tell how, when certain objects or certain events are 
perceived by the understanding. If those ideas were as 
important as those of right and wrong, or had been as 
much under the review of philosophers, we might perhaps 
have had a sense of time, a sense of number, and a sense 
of causation. And, in fact, something very like this 
language occurs in the writings of Lord Kames. 

But if Mr. Smith meant to be understood as implying 
that the words right and icrong, ought and ought not, do 



332 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

not express simple ideas, I must take the liberty of re- 
marking, in opposition to it, that, although the words 
moral sense and moral faculty, considered as indicating 
their source, are of late origin, this is by no means the case 
with the word conscience. It is indeed said, that con- 
science " does not immediately denote any moral faculty, 
by which we approve or disapprove, — that it supposes, 
indeed, the existence of some such faculty, but that it 
properly signifies our consciousness of having acted agree- 
ably or contrary to its directions." * But the truth 1 lake 
to be this, that the word conscience coincides exactly with 
the moral faculty, with this difference only, that the former 
refers to our own conduct alone, whereas the latter is 
meant to express also the power by which we approve or 
disapprove of the conduct of others. Now if this be 
granted, and if it be allowed that the former word is to be 
found in all languages, and that the latter is only a modern 
invention, is it not a natural inference, that our judgments, 
with respect to our own conduct, are not merely applica- 
tions to ourselves of those we have previously formed 
with respect to the conduct of our fellow-creatures ? 

II. The Duty of Candor ; or Justice in our Apprecia- 
tion of other JMen.] It would be endless to attempt to 
point out all the various forms in which the disposition 
formerly defined will display itself in life. I must con- 
tent myself with mentioning one or two of its more re- 
markable effects, merely as examples of the influence it 
is likely to have on the conduct. One of the more im- 
portant of these is that temper of mind we express by 
the word candor^ which prevents our judgments, with 
respect to other men, from being improperly biased by 
our passions and prejudices. This, although at bottom 
the disposition is the same, may be considered in three 
lights : — 1st. As it is displayed in appreciating the tal- 
ents of others. 2d. In judging of their intentions. 3d. 
In controversy. 

1. There is no principle more deeply implanted in the 
mind than the love of fame and of distinction, and there is 

* Smith's TheoTij of Moral Sentiments, Part. VII. Sect. iii. Chap. iii. 



JUSTICE. 333 

none which, when properly regulated, is subservient to 
more valuable purposes. It is, at the same time, a prin- 
ciple which it is perhaps as difficult to restrain within 
the bounds of moderation as any other. In some ungov- 
erned minds, it seems to get the better of every other 
principle of action, and must be a source to the possessor 
of perpetual mortification and disgust, by leading him to 
aspire at eminence in every different line of ambition, and 
to repine if in any one of them he is surpassed by others. 
In the midst of the astonishing projects which employed 
the sublime genius of Richelieu, his peace of mind was 
completely ruined by the success of the Cid of Corneille. 
Tlie first appearance of this tragedy (according to Fon- 
tenelle) alarmed the Cardinal as much as if he had seen 
the Spaniards at the gates of Paris ; and the most accept- 
able flattery which his minions could offer, was to advise 
him to eclipse the fame of Corneille by a tragedy of his 
own. Nor did he aim merely at adding the fame of a 
poet to that of a statesman. Mortified to think that any 
one path of ambition was shut against him, he is said, 
when on bis death-bed, to have held some conversations 
with his confessor about the possibility of his being canon- 
ized as a saint. 

In order to restrain this violent and insatiable desire 
within certain bounds, there are many checks appointed in 
our constitution. In the first place, it can be completely 
gratified only by the actual possession of those qualities 
for which we wish to be esteemed, and of those advan- 
tages which are the proper grounds of distinction. A good 
man is never more mortified than when he is praised for 
qualities he does not possess, or for advantages in which 
he is conscious he has no merit. Secondly, although the 
gratification of this principle consists in a certain superi- 
ority over other men, we feel that we are not entitled to 
take undue advantages of them. We may exert ourselves 
to the utmost in the race of glory, but we are not entitled 
to obstruct the progress of others, or to detract from their 
reputation in order to advance our own. All this will be 
readily granted in general ; and yet in practice there is 
surely nothing more difficult than to draw the line between 
emulation and envy, or to check that self-partiality which, 



334 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

while it leads us to dwell on our own advantages, and to 
magnify them in our own estimation, prevents us either 
from attending sufficiently to the merits of others, or from 
viewing them in the most favorable light. Of this diffi- 
culty a wise and good man will soon be satisfied from his 
own experience, and he will endeavour to guard against it 
as far as he is able, by judging of the merits of a rival, 
or even of an enemy, as he would have done if there had 
been no interference between them. He will endeavour, 
in short, to do justice to their merits, not merely in words, 
but in sincerity, and bring himself, if possible, to love and 
to honor that genius and ability which have eclipsed his 
own. Nor will he retire in disgust from the race because 
he has been outstripped by others, but will redouble all 
his exertions in the service of mankind ; recollecting, that, 
if Nature has been more partial to others in her intellectual 
gifts than to him, she has left open to all the theatre of 
virtue, where the merits of individuals are determined, not 
by their actual attainments, but by the use and improve- 
ment they make of those advantages which their situation 
has afforded them. 

2. Candor in judging of the intentions of others. I have 
before mentioned several considerations which render it 
highly probable that there is much less vice or criminal in- 
tention in the world than is commonly imagined, and that 
the greater part of the disputes among mankind arise from 
mutual mistake and misapprehension. Every man must 
recollect many instances in which his own motives have 
been grossly misapprehended by the world ; and it is but 
reasonable for him to conclude that the case may have been 
the same with other men. It is but an instance, then, of 
that justice we owe to others, to make the most candid al- 
lowances for their apparent deviations, and to give every 
action the most favorable construction it can possibly ad- 
mit of. Such a temper, while it renders a man respecta- 
ble and amiable in society, contributes perhaps more than 
any other circumstance to his private happiness. " When 
you would cheer your heart," says Marcus Antoninus, 
" consider the excellences and abilities of your several 
acquaintance ; the activity of one, the high sense of honor 
and modesty of another, the liberality of a third, and 



JUSTICE. 335 

in other persons some other virtue. There is nothing 
so delightful as virtue appearing in the conduct of your 
contemporaries as frequently as possible. Such thoughts 
we should still retain with us." * 

3. Perhaps there is no temper which so completely dis- 
qualifies us for the search of truth as that which we ex- 
perience when provoked by controversy or dispute. Some 
men undoubtedly are more misled by it than others ; but 
I apprehend there is no one, however modest and unas- 
suming, who will not own that, upon such occasions, he 
has almost always felt his judgment warped, and a desire 
of victory mingle itself, in spite of all his efforts, with his 
love of truth. Hence the aversion which all such men 
feel for controversy, — convinced from experience how like- 
ly it would be to betray themselves into error, and unwill- 
ing to afford an opportunity for displaying the envious and 
malignant passions of others. This amiable disposition 
has been often mentioned by the friends of Sir Isaac 
Newton as one of the most marked features in his charac- 
ter ; and we are even told that it led him to suppress, for a 
course of years, some of his most important discoveries, 
which he knew from their nature were likely to provoke 
opposition. " He was indeed," says one of his biogra- 
phers, " of so meek and gentle a disposition, and so great 
a lover of peace, that he would have rather chosen to re- 
main in obscurity than to have the calm of life ruffled by 
those storms and disputes which genius and learning always 
draw upon those who are most eminent for them. From 
his love of peace arose, no doubt, that unusual kind of 
horror which he felt for all disputes. Steady, unbroken 
attention, free from those frequent recoilings incident to 
others, was his peculiar felicity. He knew it, and he knew 
the value of it. When some objections, hastily made to 
his discoveries concerning light and colors, induced him to 
lay aside the design he had taken of publishing his Optical 
Lectures, we find him reflecting on that dispute, into 
which he had unavoidably been drawn, in these terms : — 
' I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so real a 
blessing as my quiet, to run after a shadow.' In the same 

* Book VI. c. 48. 



336 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

temper, after he had sent the manuscript to the Royal So- 
ciety, with his consent to the printing of it, upon Hook's 
injuriously insisting that he had himself solved Kepler's 
problem before our author, he determined, rather than be 
involved again in a controversy, to suppress the third 
book ; and he was very hardly prevailed on to alter that 
resolution." * 

I shall only add further on this head, that a love of con- 
troversy indicates, not only an overweening vanity and a 
disregard for truth, but in general, perhaps always, it indi- 
cates a mediocrity of genius ; for it arises from those feel- 
ings of envy and jealousy which provoke little minds to 
depreciate the merit of useful discoveries. He who is 
conscious of his own inventive powers, and whose great 
object is to add to the stock of human knowledge, v.ill 
reject unwillingly any plausible doctrine till after the most 
severe examination, and will separate, with patience and 
temper, the truths it contains from the errors that are 
blended with them. No opinion can be more groundless 
than that a captious and disputatious temper is a mark of 
acuteness. On the contrary, a sound and manly under- 
standing is in no instance more strongly displayed than in 
a quick perception of important truth, when imperfectly 
stated and blended with error ; — a perception which may 
not be sufficient to satisfy the judgment completely at the 
time, or at least to obviate the difficulties of others, but 
which is sufficient to prevent it from a hasty rejection of 
the whole from the obvious defects of some of the parts. 
Hence the important hints which an author of genius col- 
lects among the rubbish of his predecessors ; and which, 
so far from detracting from his own originality, place it in 
the strongest possible light, by showing that an idea which 
was already current in the world, and which had hitherto 
remained barren and useless, may, in the mind of a phi- 
losopher, become the germ of an extensive system. 

I cannot help taking this opportunity of remarking, (al- 
though the observation is not much connected with the 
subject in which we are engaged,) that something similar to 
this may be applied to our critical judgments in the fine 

* Button's Mathematical Dictionary, Art. JVeicton (Sir Isaac). 



JUSTICE. 337 

arts. It is easy to perceive blemishes, but it is the jDrov- 
ince of genius alone to have a quick perception of beauties, 
and to be eager to applaud them. And it is owing to this, 
that, of all critics, a dunce is the severest, and a man of 
genuine taste the most indulgent. 

III. The Duty of Honesty ; or Justice in respect to the 
Interests and Rights of other JMen.] The foregoing illus- 
trations are stated at some length, in order to correct 
those partial definitions of justice which restrict its prov- 
ince to a rigorous observance of the rules of integiity or 
honesty in our dealings with our fellow-creatures. So far 
as this last disposition proceeds from a sense of duty, un- 
influenced by human laws, it coincides exactly with that 
branch of virtue which has been now described under the 
title of candor. 

In the instances hitherto mentioned, the disposition of 
justice has been supposed to operate in restraining the par- 
tialities of the temper and passions. There are, however, 
no instances in which its influence is more necessary than 
where our interest is concerned ; or, to express myself 
more explicitly, where there is an apparent interference 
between our rights and those of other men. In such 
cases, a disposition to observe the rules of justice is called 
integrity or honesty, — which is so important a branch of 
justice that it has, in a great measure, appropriated the 
name to itself. The observations made by Mr. Hume 
and Mr. Smith, on the differences between justice and the 
other virtues, apply only to this last branch of it ; and it is 
this branch which properly forms the subject of that part 
of ethics which is called natural jurisjmulence.^ In what 
remains of this chapter, when the word justice occurs, it 
is to be understood in the limited sense now mentioned. 

The circumstances which distinguish this kind of justice 
from the other virtues are chiefly two. In the first place, 
its rules may be laid down with a degree of accuracy of 
which moral precepts do not in any other instance admit. 
Secondly, its rules may be enforced, inasmuch as every 
breach of them violates the rights of some other person, 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments^ Part VII. Sect. vi. 

29 



338 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

and entitles him to employ force for his defence or se- 
curity. 

Another distinction between justice and the other vir- 
tues is much insisted on by Mr. Hume. It is, according 
to him, an ai^tijicial and not a natural virtue, and derives 
all its obligations from the political union, and from con- 
siderations of utility. The principal argument alleged in 
support of this proposition is, that there is no implanted 
principle, prompting us by a blind impulse to the exercise 
of justice, similar to those affections which conspire with 
and strengthen our benevolent dispositions. But, granting 
the fact upon which this argument proceeds, nothing can 
be inferred from it that makes an essential distinction be- 
tween the obligations of justice and of beneficence ; for, so 
far as we act merely from the blind impulse of an affection, 
our conduct cannot be considered as virtuous. Our affec- 
tions were given us to ariest our attention to particular ob- 
jects, whose happiness is connected with our exertions, 
and to excite and support the activity of the mind, when a 
sense of duty might be insufficient for the purpose ; but 
the propriety or impropriety of our conduct depends, in no 
instance, on the strength or weakness of the affection, but 
on our obeying or disobeying the dictates of reason and of 
conscience. These inform us, in language which it is im- 
possible to mistake, that it is sometimes a duty to check 
the most amiable and pleasing emotions of the heart ; — 
to withdraw, for example, from the sight of those distresses 
which stronger claims forbid us to relieve, and to deny 
ourselves that exquisite luxury which arises from the ex- 
ercise of humanity. So far, therefore, as benevolence is 
a virtue, it is precisely on the same footing with justice ; 
that is, we approve of it, not because it is agreeable to us, 
but because we feel it to be a duty. 

It may be further remarked, that there are very strong 
implanted principles which serve as checks on injustice ; 
the principles, to wit, of resentment and of indignation, 
which are surely as much a j)art of the human constitution 
as pity or parental affection. These principles imply a 
sense of injustice, and consequently of justice. 

In the case of justice, also, there is always a right on 
one hand corresponding to an obligation on the other. If 



JUSTICE. 339 

I am under an obligation, for example, to abstain from 
violating the properly of my neighbour, he has a right to 
defend by force his property when invaded. It therefore 
appears that the rules of justice may be laid down in two 
different forms, either as a system of duties or as a sys- 
tem of rights. The former view of the subject belongs 
properly to the moralist, the latter to the lawyer. It is in 
this last form, accordingly, that the principles of justice 
have been stated by the writers on natural jurisprudence. 

So far there is nothing to be reprehended in the plan 
they have followed. On the contrary, a considerable ad- 
vantage was gained in point of method by adopting that 
very comprehensive and accurate division of our rights 
which the civilians had introduced. As the whole object 
of law is to protect men in all that they may lawfully do, 
or possess, or demand, civilians have defined the word jus, 
or right, to be facultas aliquid agendi, vel possidendi, vel 
ab alio consequendi, — a lawful claim to do any thing, to 
possess any thing, or to demand something from some 
other person. The first of these may be called the right 
of liberty, or the right of employing the powers we have 
received from nature in every case in which we do not 
injure the rights of others ; the second, the right of prop- 
erty ; the third, the rights arising from contract. The 
last two were further distinguished from each other by 
calling the former (to wit, the right of property) a real 
right, and the latter (to wit, the rights arising from contract) 
personal rights, because they respect some particular per- 
son or persons from whom the fulfilment of the contract 
may be required. 

This division of our rights appears to be comprehensive 
and philosophical, and it affords a convenient arrangement 
for exhibiting an indirect view of the different duties which 
justice prescribes. " What I have a right to do it is the 
duty of my fellow-creatures to allow me to do, without mo- 
lestation. What is my property no man ought to take 
from me, or to disturb me in the enjoyment of it. And 
what I have a right to demand of any man it is his duty to 
perform."* Such a system, therefore, with respect to 

* Eeid, On the Active Poioers, Essay V. Chap. iii. 



340 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

our rights, exhibits (though in a manner somewhat indirect 
and artificial) a system of the rules of justice. 

Section III. 

OF THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 

I. The Right of Property.] The following observations 
on the right of property are introduced here chiefly with 
a view to show that men possess rights antecedent to the 
establishment of the political union. 

It cannot, I apprehend, be doubted, that, according to 
the notions to which we, in the present state of society, 
are habituated from our infancy, the three following things 
are included in the idea of property. 

1. A right of exclusive enjoyment. 

2. A right of inquiry after our property, when taken 
away without our consent, and of reclaiming it wherever 
found. 

3. A right of transference. 

We do not consider our property in any object to be 
complete, unless we can exercise all these three rights 
with respect to it. 

Lord Karnes endeavours to show that these ideas are 
not agreeable to the apprehensions of the human mind in 
the ruder periods of society, but imply a refinement and 
abstraction of thought which are the result of improve- 
ment in law and government. The relation (in particular) 
of property, independent of possession, he thinks of too 
metaphysical a nature for the mind of a savage. " It ap- 
pears to me," says he, " to be highly probable, that, among 
savages involved in objects of sense, and strangers to ab- 
stract speculation, property, and the rights or moral pow- 
ers arising from it, never are with accuracy distinguished 
from the natural powers that must be exerted upon the sub- 
ject to make it profitable to the possessor. The man who 
kills and eats, who sows and reaps, at his own pleasure, 
independent of another's will, is naturally deemed proprie- 
tor. The grossest savages understand power without right, 
of which they are made sensible by daily acts of violence ; 
but property without possession is a conception too ab- 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 341 

stract for a savage, or for any person who has not studied 
the principles of law." * 

With this remark I cannot agree ; because I think the 
right of property is founded on a natural sentiment, which 
must be felt in full force in the lowest state of society. 
The sentiment I allude to is that of a moral connection 
between labor and a right of exclusive enjoyment to the 
fruits of it. This connection it will be proper to illustrate 
more particularly. 

Let us suppose, then, a country so fertile as to produce 
all the necessaries and accommodations of life without any 
exertions of human industry ; it is manifest, that, in such a 
state of things, no man would think of appropriating to him- 
self any of these necessaries or accommodations, any more 
than we in this part of the globe think of appropriating air 
or water. As this, however, is not, in any part of the 
earth, the condition of man, doomed as he is, by the cir- 
cumstances of his birth, to eat his bread in the sweat of 
his brow, it would be reasonable to expect, a 'priori, that 
Nature would make some provision for securing to indi- 
viduals the fruits of their industry. In fact, she has made 
such a provision in the natural sentiments of mankind, 
which lead them to consider industry as entitled to reward, 
and, in particular, the laborer as entitled to the fruit of his 
own labor. These, I think, may be fairly stated as moral 
axioms, to which the mind yields its assent as immedi- 
ately and necessarily as it does to any axiom in mathe- 
matics or metaphysics. 

How cruel is the mortification we feel when we see an 
industrious man reduced by some unforeseen misfortune to 
beggary in old age ! We can scarcely help complaining 
of the precarious condition of humanity, and that man 
should be thus doomed to be the sport of accident ; and 
we feel ourselves called on, as far as we are able, to re- 
pair, by our own liberality, this unjust distribution of the 
goods of fortune. On the other hand, it is difficult to 
avoid some degree of dissatisfaction when we see the 
natural and deserved reward of industry acquired all at 
once by a prize in the lottery or by gaming, although in this 

* Historical Law Tracts, Tract III. 
29* 



342 DUTIES TO OUU FELLOW-MEN. 

instance the uneasiness (as might be expected from the 
natural benevolence to the human mind) is trifling in com- 
parison to what it is in the other case. Our dissatisfac- 
tion in particular instances is much greater when we see 
the laborer deprived by accident of the immediate fruit of 
his own labor ; — when, for example, he has nearly com- 
pleted a complicated machine, and some delicate part of 
it gives way, and renders all his toil useless. 

If another person interferes with the fruit of his indus- 
try, our dissatisfaction and indignation are still more in- 
creased. We feel here a variety of sentiments. 1. A 
dissatisfaction that the laborer does not enjoy that reward 
to which his industry entitled him. 2. A dissatisfaction 
that another person, who did not labor, should acquire the 
possession of an object of value. . And 3. An indig- 
nation against the man who deprived the laborer of his 
just reward. 

This sentiment, that " the laborer deserves the fruit of 
his own labor," is the chiefs or rather (abstracting posi- 
tive institution,) the only foundation of the sense of prop- 
erty. An attempt to deprive him of it is a species of 
injustice which rouses the indignation of every impartial 
spectator ; and so deeply are these principles implanted in 
our nature, that we cannot help feeling some degree of 
remorse when we deprive even a hive of bees of that pro- 
vision which they had industriously collected for their own 
use. 

The writers, indeed, on natural law ascribe in general 
the origin of property to priority of occupancy, and have 
puzzled themselves in attempting to explain how this act 
should appropriate to an individual what was formerly in 
common. Grotius and PuffendorfT insist that this right of 
occupancy is founded upon a tacit but understood assent 
of all mankind, that the first occupant should become the 
owner. And Barbeyrac, Locke, and others, that the 
very act of occupancy alone, being a degree of bodily 
labor, is, from a principle of natural justice, without any 
compact, a sufficient foundation of property. Blackstone, 
although he thinks that the dispute about the manner in 
which occupancy conveys a right of property savours 
too much of scholastic refinement, expresses no doubt 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 64 3 

about its having this effect independent of positive institu- 
tions.* 

Some later philosophers have founded the right of prop- 
erty on the general sympathy of mankind with the rea- 
sonable expectation which the occupant has formed of en- 
joying unmolested the object he has got possession of, or 
of which he was the first discoverer ; and on the indigna- 
tion felt by the impartial spectator when he sees this rea- 
sonable expectation disappointed. This theory (which I 
have been assured from the best authority was adopted by 
Mr. Smith in his lectures on jurisprudence) seems to have 
been suggested by a passage in Dr. Hutcheson's Moral 
Philosophy^ in which he says, that " it is immoral, when 
we can support ourselves otherwise, to defeat any inno- 
cent design of another ; and that on this immorality is 
founded the regard we owe to the claims of the first occu- 
pant." In this theory, too, it is taken for granted that 
priority of occupancy founds a right of property, and that 
such a right may even be acquired by having accidentally 
seen a valuable object before it was observed by any other 
person. 

In order to think with accuracy on this subject, it is 
necessary to distinguish carefully the complete right of 
property which is founded on labor, from the transient 
right of possession which is acquired by mere priority of 
occupancy. Thus, before the appropriation of land, if 
any individual had occupied a particular spot for repose 
or shade, it would have been unjust to deprive him of the 
possession of it. This, however, was only a transient 
right. The spot of ground would again become common 
the moment the occupier had left it ; that is, the right of 
possession would remain no longer than the act of posses- 
sion. Cicero illustrates this happily by the similitude of 
a theatre. " Quemadmodum theatrum, cum commune sit, 
recte tamen dici potest ejus esse eum locum quern quisque 
occuparit." f 

The general conclusions which I deduce from the fore- 
going observations are these : — 

* See his Commentaries, Book II. Chap. i. 

t De Finilms, Lib. 111. 20. "As in a theatre the seats are all for com- 
mon use, yet every man's place is his own when he has taken it." 



344 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

1. That, in every state of society, labor, wherever it is 
exerted, is understood to found a right of property. 

2. That, according to natural law, (in the sense at least 
in which that phrase is commonly employed by writers on 
jurisprudence,) labor is the only original way of acquiring 
property. 

3. That, according to natural law, mere occupancy 
founds only a right of possession ; and that, wherever it 
founds a complete right of property, it owes its force to 
positive institutions. 

II. Origin and History of Property. 1 An attention 
to these conclusions, in particular to the distinction be- 
tween the transient right of possession founded on occu- 
pancy, and the permanent right of property founded on 
labor, will, if I mistake not, clear up some of the dif- 
ficulties which involve the first steps in the history of 
property, according to the view of the subject given by 
Lord Karnes ; and it was with this view I was led to pre- 
mise these general principles to the slight historical sketch 
I am now to offer. 

With respect to that system which refers the origin of 
property to the political union and to considerations of 
utility, it seems sufficient to observe, that, so far is gov- 
ernment from creating this right, its necessary effect is 
to subject it to certain limitations. Abstraction made of 
political confederation, every man's property is solely at 
his own disposal. He is supreme judge in his own cause, 
and may defend what he conceives to be his right as far 
as his power reaches. In the state of civil society his 
property is regulated by positive laws, and he must ac- 
quiesce in the judgment of his superiors with respect to 
his rights, even in those cases where he feels it to be 
unjust. 

From the passage already quoted from Karnes, it ap- 
pears that he conceived the idea of property without pos- 
session to be of too abstract and metaphysical a nature to 
be apprehended by a savage ; and he has collected a 
variety of facts to prove, that, according to the common 
notions of mankind, in the infancy of jurisprudence, the 
right of property is understood to cease the moment that 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 345 

possession is at an end. But on a more attentive exami- 
nation of the subject, 1 apprehend it will be found that the 
ideas of savages, with respect to property, are the same 
with ours ; that mere occupancy witiiout labor founds 
only a right of possession ; and that labor, wherever it is 
employed, founds an exclusive and permanent right to the 
fruits of it. Lord Karnes's theory has obviously been 
suggested by the common doctrine with respect to the 
right of property being founded in priority of occupancy, 
compared with the acknowledged fact, that among rude 
nations occupancy does not establish a permanent right. 
The other arguments which he has alleged in support of 
his opinion will be found to be equally inconclusive. 

Before I proceed to the consideration of these, it may 
be proper to observe, that w^e must not always form an 
idea of the sentiments of men from the defects of their 
laws. The existence, indeed, of a law is a proof of the 
sentiments which men felt when the law was made ; but 
the defects of a law are not always proofs that men did 
not feel that there ivcre disorders in the state of society 
which required correction. The lavvs of a country may 
not make provision for reparation to the original proprietor 
in the case of theft ; but it will not follow from this that 
men do not apprehend the original proprietor to have any 
right when his property has been stolen from him. The 
application of this general remark to some of the argu- 
ments I am now to consider will, T hope, be so obvious, 
as to render it unnecessary for me to point it out par- 
ticularly. 

Among these arguments, one of the most plausible is 
founded on a general principle, which appears, from a 
variety of facts quoted by Kames, to run through most 
rude systems of jurisprudence, that, in the case of stolen 
goods, the claim of the bona jide purchaser is preferable 
to that of the original proprietor. This he accounts for 
from the imperfect notions they have of the metaphysical 
nature of property when separated from possession. But 
if this were the case, the same laws should support the 
claim of the f/iie/ against the original proprietor : or rather, 
indeed, neither the original proprietor, nor any one else, 
could conceive that he had any connection with the object 



346 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Stolen the moment after it was out of his possession. The 
fact is, that this respect paid to the bona jide purchaser is 
a proof, not of any misap[)rehension with respect to the 
idea of property, but of a weak government and an im- 
perfect poHce. Where thefts are easily committed, and 
where no public fairs or markets are established, it would 
put a complete end to all transferences of property, if the 
bona fide purchaser were left exposed to the claims of 
former proprietors. Such a practice would be attended 
with still greater inconveniences than arise from the casual 
violations of property by theft ; not to mention that the 
regard shown to the bona jide purchaser must have a ten- 
dency to repress theft, by redoubling the attention of indi- 
viduals to preserve the actual possession of their property. 
That these or some other views of utility were the real 
foundation of the laws quoted by Kames is confirmed by 
an old regulation in our own country, prohibiting buying 
and selling, except in open market, — a regulation which 
had obviously been suggested by the experience of the 
inconveniences arising from the latent claims of former 
proprietors against bona fide purchasers. 

Another argument mentioned by Kames in support of 
his theory is founded on the shortness of the term which 
completes prescription among rude nations ; a single year, 
for example, in the case of movables, by the oldest law 
of the Romans. This law, he says, testifies that property, 
independent of possession, was considered to be a right of 
the slenderest kind. It is evident, that, upon his own prin- 
ciples, it should not in that state of society have been con- 
sidered as a right at all. If it was conceived to subsist a 
single day after the possession was at an end, the meta- 
physical difficulty which he magnifies so much was obvi- 
ously surmounted. In every society it will be found ex- 
pedient to fix some term for prescription, and the particu- 
lar length of it must be determined by the circumstances 
of the society at the time. In general, as law improves, 
and government becomes more effectual, a greater atten- 
tion to the stability of property, and consequently a longer 
term for prescription, may be expected. 

The community of goods, which is said to take place 
among some rude nations, will be found, on examination, 



KIGHT OF PROPERTY. 347 

to be perfectly consistent with the account I have given of 
their ideas on the subject of property. Where the game 
is taken by a common efibrt, the natural sense of justice 
dictates that it should be enjoyed in common. And in- 
deed, abstracting all considerations of justice, the ex- 
perience of the precarious fortune of the chase would 
soon suggest to the common sense of mankind the expe- 
diency of such an arrangement. This, however, does not 
indicate any imperfection in their idea of property ; for 
even in this state of society there are always some articles 
which are understood to be the exclusive property of the 
individual, such as his bow and arrows, and the instru- 
ments he employs in fishing. 

I am confirmed in these conclusions by the account 
given by Dr. Robertson of the American Indians ; and the 
more so, as the facts he mentions, and even his reason- 
ings, stand in opposition to his own preconceived opinion. 
"..Vc/f f ons, " he says expressly, " which depend upon hunt- 
ing are strangers to tJie idea of property "; and yet, when 
he comes to explain himself, it appears that, even in the 
present age of metaphysical refinement, if our physical 
circumstances were the same, we should feel and judge 
exactly as they do. " As the animals," he continues, in 
the passage immediately following the last sentence I 
quoted, "on which the hunter feeds are not bred under 
his inspection, nor nourished by his care, he can claim no 
right to them while they run wild in the forest. Where 
game is so plentiful that it can be caught with little 
trouble, men never dream of appropriating what is of 
small value, or of easy acquisition. Where it is so rare 
that the labor or danger of the chase requires the united 
efforts of a tribe or village, what is killed is a common 
stock, belonging equally to all who, by their skill or their 
courage, have contributed to the success of the excursion. 
The forest or hunting-grounds are deemed the property of 
the tribe, from which it has a title to exclude every rival 
nation. But no individual arrogates a right to any district 
of these in preference to his fellow-citizens. They be- 
long equally to all, and thither, as to a general and undi- 
vided store, all repair in quest of sustenance. The same 
principles by which they regulate their chief occupation 



348 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

extend to that which is subordinate. Even agriculture 
has not introduced among them a complete idea of prop- 
erty. As the men hunt, the women labor together, and 
after they have shared the toils of the seed-time, they en- 
joy the harvest in common." * 

In the notes and illustrations at the end of his History, 
Dr. Robertson seems to have been aware that he had ex- 
pressed himself somewhat too strongly on this subject, 
and he has even gone so far as to intimate his suspicions 
that the common facts are not very accurately stated. " I 
strongly suspect that a community of goods, and an undi- 
vided store, are known only among the rudest tribes of 
hunters, and that, as soon as any species of agriculture or 
regular industry is known, the idea of an exclusive right 
of property to the fruits of them is introduced." 

In support of this opinion, Dr. Robertson refers to 
accounts which he had received concerning the state of 
property among the Indians in very different regions of 
America. " The idea of the natives of Brazil," says the 
Chevalier de Pinto, who writes on this subject from per- 
sonal observation, " concerning property is, that, if any 
person cultivate a field, he alone ought to enjoy the prod- 
uce of it, and no other has a title to pretend to it. If 
an individual or a family go a hunting or fishing, what is 
caught belongs to the individual or family, and they com- 
municate no part of it but to their Cazique, and such of 
their kindred as happen to be indisposed. 

" If any person in the village come to their hut, he may 
sit down freely and eat without asking liberty. But this 
is the consequence of their general principle of hospitality ; 
for I never observed any partition of the increase of their 
fields, or the produce of the chase, which I could con- 
sider as the result of any idea concerning the community 
of goods. On the contrary, they are so much attached to 
what they deem to be their property, that it would be ex- 
tremely dangerous to encroach on it. As far as I have 
seen or can learn, there is not one tribe of Indians in 
South America among whom that community of goods, 
which has been so highly extolled, is known. The cir- 

* History of .America, Book IV. § 66. 



RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 349 

cumstance in the government of the Jesuits most irksome 
to the Indians of Paraguay was the community of goods 
which those fathers introduced. This was repugnant to 
the original ideas of the Indians. They were acquainted 
with the rights of private exclusive property, and they 
submitted with impatience to the regulations which de- 
stroyed them." 

"Actual possession," says a missionary who resided! 
several years among the Indians of the Five Nations, 
" gives a right to the soil ; but, whenever a possessor sees^ 
fit to quit it, another has as good a right to take it as he 
who left it. This law or custom respects not only the 
particular spot on which he erects his house, but also his 
planting ground. If a man has prepared a particular spot 
of ground, on which he proposes in future to build or 
plant, no man has a right to incommode him, much less to 
the fruit of his labors, until it appears that he voluntarily 
gives up his views. But I never heard of any formal 
conveyance from one Indian to another in their natural; 
state. The limits of every canton are circumscribed, that 
is, they are allowed to hunt as far as such a river on this 
hand, and such a mountain on the other. This area is 
occupied and improved by individuals and their families. 
Individuals, not the community, have the use and profit of 
their own labors, or success in hunting." 

III. Property^ when rightfully created or recognized by 
Positive Laws, not less Sacred.] It must not, however, 
be inferred from what has been said, that in a civilized so- 
ciety there is any thing in that species of property which 
is acquired by labor to which individuals owe a more 
sacred regard than they do to every other species of 
property created or recognized by positive laws. Among 
these last there are many which have derived their origin 
from a principle no less obligatory than our natural sense 
of justice, a clear perception in the mind of the legislator 
(sanctioned perhaps by the concurrent experience of dif- 
ferent ages and nations) of general utility ; and to all of 
them, while they exist, the reverence of the subject is due 
on the same principle which binds him to respect and 
to maintain the social order. Nature has provided for 
30 



350 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

human happiness, in this instance, in a manner precisely 
analogous to her general economy. Tliose sin)ple and 
indispensable rules of right and ivrong, o[ just and unjust, 
without which the fruits of the earth could not be con- 
verted to the use of man, nor his existence maintained 
even in the rudest form of the social union, she has en- 
graved on the heart as an essential part of the human con- 
stitution, — leaving men, as society advances, to employ 
their gradually improving reason in fixing, according to 
their own ideas of expediency, the various regulations con- 
cerning the acquisition, the alienation and transmission of 
property, which the more complicated interests of the 
community may require. 

It is also beautifully ordered, that, while a regard for 
legal property is thus secured, among men capable of re- 
flection, by a sense of general utility, the same effect is 
accomplished, in the minds of the multitude, by habit and 
the association of ideas ; in consequence of which, all the 
inequalities of fortune are sanctioned by mere prescription, 
and long possession is conceived to found a right of prop- 
erty as complete as that which, by the law of nature, an in- 
dividual has in the fruits of his own industry. 

In such a state of things, therefore, as that with which 
we are connected, the right of property must be under- 
stood to derive its origin from two distinct sources : the 
one is that natural sentiment of the mind which establishes 
a moral connection between labor and an exclusive enjoy- 
ment of the fruits of it ; the other is the municipal institu- 
tions of the country where we live. These institutions 
everywhere take rise partly from ideas of natural justice, 
and partly (perhaps chiefly) from ideas of supposed utili- 
ty, — two principles which, when properly understood, 
are, I believe, always in harmony with each other, and 
which it ought to be the great aim of every legislator to 
reconcile to the utmost of his power. Among those ques- 
tions, however, which fall under the cognizance of positive 
laws, there are many on which natural justice is entirely 
silent, and which, of consequence, may be discussed on 
principles of utility solely. Such are most of the ques- 
tions concerning the regulation of the succession to a man's 
property after his death ; of some of which it may per- 



VERACITY. 351 

haps be found that the determination ought to vary with 
the circumstances of the society, and which have cer- 
tainly, in fact, been frequently determined by the caprice 
of the legislator, or by some principle ultimately resolva- 
ble into an accidental association of ideas. Indeed, vari- 
ous cases may be supposed, in which it is not only useful, 
but necessary, that a rule should be fixed ; while, at the 
same time, neither justice nor utility seems to be much in- 
terested in the particular decision. 

In examining the questions which turn on considerations 
of utility, some will immediately occur, of which the deter- 
mination is so obvious, and which, at the same time, are so 
universal in their application, that the laws of all enlightened 
nations on the subject may be expected to be the same. Of 
this description are many of the questions which may be 
stated with respect to the effects of priority of occupancy 
in establishing permanent rights. These questions are of 
course frequently confounded with questions of natural 
law ; and in one sense of that phrase they may not improp- 
erly be comprehended under the title, but the distinction 
between them and the other class of questions is essential ; 
for wherever considerations of utility are involved, the 
political union is supposed, whereas the principle of jus- 
tice, properly so called, (of that justice, for example, which 
respects the right of the laborer to enjoy the fruit of his 
own industry,) is inseparable from the human frame.* 

Section IV. 

OF VERACITY. 

I. Importance and Foundation of Veracity. 1 The 
important rank which veracity holds among our social 
duties appears from the obvious consequences that would 
result if no foundation were laid for it in the constitution 
of our nature. The purposes of speech would be frus- 
trated, and every man's opportunities of knowledge would 
be limited to his own personal experience. 

* On the right of property and its limitations, see Mill's Principles of 
Political Economy, Part II. Chap, i., ii. — Ed. 



352 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

Consideralions of unlity, however, do not seem lo be 
the only ground of the approbation we bestow on this dis- 
position. Abstraction made of all regard to consequences, 
there is something pleasing and amiable in sincerity, open- 
ness, and truth, — something disagreeable and disgusting in 
duplicity, equivocation, and falsehood. Dr. Hutcheson 
himself, the great patron of that theory which resolves all 
moral qualities into benevolence, confesses this ; for he 
speaks of a sense which leads us to approve of veracity, 
distinct from the sense which approves of qualities useful 
to mankind.* As this, however, is at best but a vague 
way of speaking, it may be proper to analyze more par- 
ticularly that part of our constitution from which our ap- 
probation of veracity arises. 

That there is in the human mind a natural or instinctive 
principle of veracity has been remarked by many authors, 
the same part of our constitution which prompts to social 
intercourse prompting also to sincerity in our mutual 
communications. Truth is always the spontaneous and 
native expression of our sentiments ; whereas falsehood 
implies a certain violence done to our nature, in conse- 
quence of the influence of some motive which we are anx- 
ious to conceal. 

II. Truth and the Love of Truth.] With respect to 
the nature of truth various metaphysical speculations have 
been offered to the world, and various definitions have been 
attempted, both by the ancients and moderns. These, 
however, have thrown but little light on the subject, which 
is not surprising, when we consider that the word truth 
expresses a simple idea or notion, of which no analysis or 
explication is possible. The same observation may be 
made with respect to the words knoioledge and belief. 
All of them express notions which are implied in every 
judgment of the understanding, and which no being can 
form who is not possessed of a rational nature. And, by 
the way, these notions deserve to be added to the list for- 

* PhilosophicE Moralis Institittio Comjiendiaria, Lib. II. Capp. ix., x. 

Aristotle expresses himself nearly to the same purpose. Ethic. 
Kicomach., Lib. IV. Cap. vii. V^arious passages of a similar import 
occur in Cicero. 



VERACITY. 353 

merly mentioned, as exemplifications of the imperfection 
of the account commonly given of the origin of our ideas. 
They are obviously not derived from any particular sense ; 
and they do not seem to be referable to any part of our 
constitution, but to the understanding ; or, in other words, 
to those rational powers which distinguish man from the 
brutes. This language, I know, will appear to be very 
loose and inaccurate to those who have familiarized their 
minds to the common doctrine ; but it is a plain and in- 
disputable statement of the fact. 

To acquire knowledge or to discover truth is the prop- 
er object of curiosity ; — a principle of action which is 
coeval with the first operations of the intellect, and which 
in most minds continues through life to have a powerful 
influence, in one way or another, on the character and the 
conduct. It is this principle which puts the intellectual 
faculties in motion, and gives them that exercise which is 
necessary for their development and improvement ; and 
which, according to the direction it takes, and the particu- 
lar set of faculties it exercises, is the principal foundation 
of the diversities of genius among men. And as the diver- 
sities of genius proceed from the different directions in 
which curiosity engages the attention, so the inequalities 
of genius among individuals may be traced in a great 
measure to the different degrees of ardor and perseverance 
with which the curiosity operates. When I say this, I 
would not be understood to insinuate that the different ca- 
pacities of individuals are the same ; a supposition con- 
tradicted by obvious facts, and contrary to what we should 
be led to conclude from the analogy of the body. I only 
wish to impress on all those who have any connection with 
the education of youth the great importance of stimulat- 
ing the curiosity, and of directing it to proper objects, as 
the most effectual of all means for securing the improve- 
ment of the mind : I may add, as one of the most ef- 
fectual provisions that can be made for the happiness of 
the individual, in consequence of the resources it furnishes 
when we are left to depend on ourselves for enjoyment ; 
and in consequence, also, of the progressive vigor with 
which it operates to the very close of life, in proportion 
30* 



354 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

to the enlargement of our experience and the extent of our 
information. 

In order, however, to prevent misapprehensions of my 
meaning, it is necessary for me again to remark, that the 
curiosity on which I lay so great a stress is that curiosity 
alone which has truth for its object. " There are many 
men," says Butler, " who have a strong curiosity to know 
what is said, who have no curiosity to know what is true " ; 
— men who value knowledge only as furnishing an em- 
ployment to their memory, or as supplying a gratification 
to their vanity in their intercourse with others. It is a 
weakness which we may presume has prevailed more or 
less in all ages, but which has been much encouraged in 
modern Europe by that superstitious admiration of antiq- 
uity which has withdrawn so much genius and industry 
from the pursuits of science to those of erudition. No 
prejudice can be conceived more adverse to the progress 
of useful knowledge, not only as it occasions an idle waste 
of time and labor which might have been more profitably 
employed, but as it contributes powerfully to destroy that 
simplicity and modesty of temper which are the genuine 
characteristics of the true philosopher. 

I think it of importance to add, that the love of truth, 
where it is the great motive of our intellectual pursuits, 
gains daily an accession of strength as our knowledge ad- 
vances. I have already said, that it is an ultimate fact in 
our nature, and is not resolvable into views of utility. Its 
extensive effects on human happiness are discovered only 
in the progress of our experience ; but when this dis- 
covery is once made, it superadds to our instinctive curi- 
osity every stimulus which self-love and benevolence can 
furnish. The connection between error and misery, be- 
tween truth and happiness, becomes gradually more ap- 
parent as our inquiries proceed, and produces at last a 
complete conviction, that, even in those cases where we 
are unable to trace it, the connection subsists. He who 
feels this as he ought will consider a steadfast adherence 
to the truth as an expression of benevolence to man, and 
of confidence in the righteous administration of the uni- 
verse, and will suspect the purity of those motives which 



VERACITY. 355 

would lead him to advance the good of his species, or the 
glory of his Maker, by deceit and hypocrisy. 

III. Means of inculcating and enforcing the Duty of 
Veracity.^ In offering these remarks, I shall no doubt be 
thought to have taken a very wide circuit in order to illus- 
trate the nature of that veracity which is incumbent on us 
in our intercourse with our fellow-creatures. But it ap- 
pears to me that the most solid of all foundations for the 
uniform and the scrupulous exercise of this virtue is to 
cherish the love of truth in general, and to impress the 
mind with a conviction of its important effects on our own 
happiness and on that of society. There is, indeed, a sort 
of gross and ostensible practice of this duty, which is 
secured by what we call the point of honor in modern 
Europe, which brands with infamy every palpable devia- 
tion from the truth in matters of fact. The law of honor 
here operates in the case of veracity, in some measure, as 
the law of the magistrate operates in the case of justice. 
But as in the latter case a man may be unjust in the sight 
of God and of his own conscience without transgressing 
the letter of any statute, so, in the former, without forfeit- 
ing his character as a gentleman, he may often incur all 
the guilt of a liar and an impostor. Is it, in a moral view, 
more criminal to misrepresent a fact, than to impose on 
the world by what we know to be an unsound or a falla- 
cious argument .'' Is it, in a moral view, more criminal 
to mislead another by a verbal lie, than by actions which 
convey a false idea of our intentions .'' Is it, in a moral 
view, more criminal, or is it more inconsistent with the 
dignity of a man of true honor, to defraud men in a pri- 
vate transaction by an incorrect or erroneous statement of 
circumstances, than to mislead the public to their own 
ruin by those wilful deviations from truth into which we 
see men daily led by views of interest or ambition, or by 
the spirit of political faction ? Numberless cases, in 
short, may be fancied, in which our only security for truth 
is the virtuous disposition of the individual, and where 
the restraint of public opinion has little or no influence. 
Perhaps I should not go too far were I to affirm, that, as 
there is no duty of which the gross and ostensible prac- 



356 DUTIES TO OUR FELLOW-MEN. 

tice is so effectually secured by the manners of modern 
times, so there is none to the obligation of which man- 
kind seem in general to be so insensible, considered as 
moral agents, and accountable to God for their thoughts 
and intentions. 

Among the various causes which have conspired to re- 
lax our moral principles on this important article, the 
facility which the press affords us in modern times of ad- 
dressing the world by means of anonymous publications 
is probably one of the most powerful. The salutary re- 
straint which a regard to character imposes, in most cases, 
on our moral deviations, is here withdrawn ; and we have 
no security for the fidelity of the writer, but his disinter- 
ested love of truth and of mankind. The palpable and 
ludicrous misrepresentations of facts, to which we are 
accustomed from our infancy in the periodical prints of 
the day, gradually unhinge our faith in all such communi- 
cations ; and what we are every day accustomed to see, 
we cease in time to regard with due abhorrence. Nor is 
this the only moral evil resulting from the licentiousness of 
the press. The intentions of nature in appointing public 
esteem as the reward of virtue, and infamy as the punish- 
ment of vice, are in a great measure thwarted ; and while 
the fairest characters are left open to the assaults of a 
calumny which it is impossible to trace to its author, the 
opinions of the public may be so divided by the artifices of 
hireling flatterers, with respect to men of the most profli- 
gate and abandoned lives, as to enable them, not only to 
brave the censures of the world, but to retaliate with more 
than an equal advantage on the good name of those who 
have the rashness to accuse them. 

Tn a free government like ours, the liberty of the press 
has been often and justly called the palladium of the con- 
stitution ; but it may reasonably be doubted whether this 
liberty would be at all impaired by a regulation, which, 
while it left the press perfectly open to every man who 
was willing openly to avow his opinions, rendered it im- 
possible for any individual to publish a sentence without 
the sanction of his name. Upon this question, however, 
considered in a political point of view, I shall not pre- 
sume to decide. Considered in a moral light, the advan- 



VERACITY. 357 

tages of such a regulation appear to be obvious and indis- 
putable, and the effect could scarcely fail to have a most 
extensive influence on national manners.* 

Beside that love of truth which seems evidently to be 
an original principle of the mind, there are other laws of 
our nature which were plainly intended to secure the prac- 
tice of veracity in our intercourse with our fellow-crea- 
tures. There are others, too, which, as they suppose the 
practice of this virtue, may be regarded as intimations of 
that conduct which is conformable to the end and destina- 
tion of our being. Such is that disposition to repose faith 
in testimony^ which is coeval with the use of language. 
^Vilhout such a disposition, the education of children 
would be impracticable ; and accordingly, so far from 
being the result of experience, it seems to be, in the first 
instance, unlimited, — nature intrusting its gradual correc- 
tion to the progress of reason and of observation. This 
remark, which I think was first made by Dr. Reid, has 
been since repeated and enforced by Mr. Smith, in his 
Theory of Moral Sentiments. This author observes, fur- 
ther, that, " notwithstanding the lessons of caution commu- 
nicated to us by experience, there is scarcely a man to be 
found who is not more credulous than he ought to be, and 
who does not, upon many occasions, give credit to tales 
which not only turn out to be perfectly false, but which a 
very moderate degree of reflection and attention might 
have taught him could not well be true. The natural dis- 
position is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and 
experience alone that teach incredulity, and they very sel- 
dom teach it enough. The wisest and most cautious of 
us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is 
afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could pos- 
sibly think of believing." This disposition to repose faith 
in testimony bears a striking analogy, both in its origin and 
in its final cause, to our instinctive expectation of the con- 
tinuance of those laws which regulate the course of physi- 
cal events. 

In infancy the principle of veracity is by no means so 
conspicuous as that of credulity, and it sometimes happens 

* For the political aspects of this subject, see Lord Brougham's Politi- 
cal Philosophy, Part III. Chap. xxi. — Ed. 



358 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

that a good deal of care is necessary to cherish it. But 
in such cases it will always be found that there is some 
indirect motive combined with the desire of social com- 
munication, such as fear, or vanity, or mischief, or sensu- 
ality. The same principle which prompts to social inter- 
course and to the use of speech prompts also to veracity. 
Nor is it probable that there is such a thing as falsehood 
uttered merely from the love of falsehood. 

If this remark be just, it suggests an important practical 
rule in the business of education: — not to attempt the 
cure of lying and deceit by general rules concerning the 
duty of veracity, or by punishments inflicted upon every 
single violation of it, but by studying to discover and re- 
move the radical evil from which it springs, whether it be 
cowardice, or vanity, or mischief, or selfishness, or sen- 
suality. Either of these, if allowed to operate, will in 
time unhinge the natural constitution of the mind, and pro- 
duce a disregard to truth upon all occasions where a tem- 
porary convenience can be gained by the breach of it. 

From these imperfect hints, it would appear that every 
breach of veracity indicates some latent vice or some 
criminal intention, which an individual is ashamed to avow. 
And hence the peculiar beauty of openness or sincerity, 
uniting in some degree in itself the graces of all the other 
moral qualities of which it attests the existence. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OURSELVES. 

Prudence, temperance, and fortitude are no less req- 
uisite for enabling us to discharge our social duties, than 
for securing our own private happiness ; but as they do not 
necessarily imply any reference to our fellow-creatures, 
they seem to belong most properly to this third branch of 
virtue. 

i\.n illustration of the nature and tendency of these 
qualities, and of the means by which they are to be im- 



PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 359 

proved and confirmed, akhough a most important article 
of ethics, does not lead to any discussions of so abstract 
a kind as to require particular attention in a work of which 
brevity is a principal object. It is sufficient here to re- 
mark, that, independently of all considerations of utility, 
either to ourselves or to others, these qualities are ap- 
proved of as right and becoming. Their utility, at the 
same time, or rather necessity, for securing the discharge 
of our other duties, adds greatly to the respect they com- 
mand, and is certainly the chief ground of the obligation 
we lie under to cultivate the habits by which they are 
formed. 

A steady regard^ in the conduct of life, to the happiness 
and perfection of our own nature, and a diligent study of 
the means by which these ends may he attained, is another 
duty belonging to this branch of virtue. It is a duty so 
important and comprehensive, that it leads to the practice 
of all the rest, and is therefore entitled to a very full and 
particular examination in a system of moral philosophy. 
Such an examination, while it leads our thoughts " to the 
end and aim of our being," will again bring under our re- 
view the various duties already considered ; and, by show- 
ing how they all conspire in recommending the same dis- 
positions, will illustrate the unity of design in the human 
constitution, and the benevolent wisdom displayed in its 
formation. Other subordinate duties, besides, which it 
would be tedious to enumerate under separate titles, may 
thus be placed in a light more interesting and agreeable. 

Section I. 

OF THE DUTY OF EMPLOYING THE MEANS WE POSSESS TO 
SECURE OUR OWN HAPPINESS. 

According to Dr. Hutcheson, our conduct, so far as 
it is influenced by self-love, is never the object of moral 
approbation. Even a regard to the pleasures of a good 
conscience he considered as detracting from the merit of 
those actions which it encourages us to perform. 

That the principle of self-love (or, in other words, the 
desire of happiness) is neither an object of approbation 



360 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

nor of blame is sufficiently obvious. It is Inseparable 
from the nature of man as a rational and a sensitive being. 
It is, however, no less obvious, on the other hand, that 
this desire, considered as a principle of action, has by no 
means a uniform influence on the conduct. Our animal 
appetites, our affections, and the other inferior principles 
of our nature, interfere as often with self-love as with be- 
nevolence, and mislead us from our own happiness as much 
as from the duties we owe to others. 

In these cases, every spectator pronounces that we 
deserve to suffer for our folly and indiscretion ; and we 
ourselves, as soon as the tumult of passion is over, feel in 
the same manner. Nor is this remorse merely a sentiment 
of regret for having missed that happiness which we might 
have enjoyed. We are dissatisfied,. not only with our con- 
dition, but with our conduct, — with our having forfeited 
by our own imprudence what we might have attained.* 

It is true, that we do not feel so warm an indignation 
against the neglect of private good as against perfidy, 
cruelty, and injustice. The reason probably is, that im- 
prudence commonly carries its own punishment along with 
it, and our resentment is disarmed by pity. Indeed, as 
that habitual regard to his own happiness, which every 
man feels, exce[)t when under the influence of some vio- 
lent appetite, is a powerful check on imprudence, it was 
less necessary to provide an additional punishment for this 
vice in the indignation of the world. 

From the principles now stated, it follows, that, in a 
person who believes in a future state, the criminality of 
every bad action is aggravated by the imprudence with 
which it is accompanied. 

It follows, also, that the punishments annexed by the 
civil magistrate to particular actions render the commission 
of them more criminal than it would otherwise be ; inso- 
much, that, if an action, in itself perfectly indifferent, were 
prohibited by some arbitrary law, under a severe penalty, 
the commission of that action (unless we were called to it 
by some urgent consideration of duty) would be criminal, 
not merely on account of the obedience which a subject 

* See Butler's DisserLalion on the Kature of Virtue. 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 361 

owes to established authority, but on account of the re- 
gard which every man ought to feel for his life and reputa- 
tion. To forge the handwriting of another with a fraud- 
ulent intention is undoubtedly a crime, independently of 
positive institutions ; and it becomes still more criminal in 
a commercial country like ours, on account of the exten- 
sive mischiefs which may arise from it. It is a crime, 
however, not of greater magnitude than many other kinds 
of commercial fraud that might be mentioned. If the 
king, for example, grants his patent to a subject for a par- 
ticular invention, and another counterfeits it, and makes 
use of his name, stamp, and coat of arms, he not only in- 
jures an individual, but imposes on the public. Abstrac- 
tion made, therefore, of positive law, the criminality of the 
latter act is fully as great as that of the former. As the 
law, however, has made the one act capital, and the other 
not, but only subjected the person who commits it to pe- 
cuniary damages to the individual he has injured, the for- 
gery of a deed becomes incomparably more criminal, in a 
moral view, than the counterfeit of a patent invention. A 
good man, indeed, will neither do the one nor the other. 
But the man who adds to a fraudulent disposition an im- 
prudent disregard to his own life and character is, un- 
doubtedly, the more guilty of the two, and meets his fate 
with much less sympathy from others than he would re- 
ceive if he had committed the same act without knowing 
its consequences. 

Section II. 

OF THE DIFFERENT THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 

I. General Observations.'] The most superficial ob- 
servation of life is sufficient to'^-eonvince us that happiness 
is not to be attained by giving every appetite and desire 
the gratification it demands ; and that it is necessary for 
us to form to ourselves some plan or system of conduct, 
in subordination to which all other objects are to be pur- 
sued. 

To ascertain what this system ought to be is a problem 
which has, in all ages, employed the speculations of phi- 
31 



362 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

losophers. Among the ancients, ihe question concerning 
the sovereign good was the principal subject of controversy 
which divided the schools ; and it was treated in such a 
manner as to involve almost every other question of ethics. 
The opinions maintained with respect to it by some of their 
sects comprehend many of the most important truths to 
which the inquiry leads, and leave little to be added but 
a few corrections and limitations of their conclusions. 

These opinions may be all reduced to three : those of 
the Epicureans, of the Stoics, and of the Peripatetics ; 
and, indeed, it does not seem possible to form a concep- 
tion of any scheme of happiness which may not be referred 
to one or other of these three systems. 

II. (1.) The Epicurean. 1 The fundamental principle 
of the Epicurean system was, that bodily pleasure and 
pain were the sole ultimate objects of desire and aversion. 
These were desired and shunned on their own account ; 
everything else, from its tendency to procure the one of 
these or to save us from the other. Power, (for exam- 
ple,) riches, reputation, even the virtues themselves, were 
not desirable for their own sake, but were valuable merely 
as being instrumental to procure us the objects of our nat- 
ural desires. " They who place the sovereign good in 
virtue alone, and who, dazzled by words, overlook the in- 
tentions of nature, will be delivered from this greatest of 
all errors, if they will only listen to Epicurus. As to 
these rare and excellent qualities on which you set so high 
a value, who is there that would consider them as objects 
either of praise or of imitation, unless from a belief that 
they are instrumental in adding to the sum of our pleas- 
ures ? For as we prize the medical art, not on its own 
account, but as subservient to the preservation of health, 
and the art of the pilot, not for the skill he displays, but as 
it diminishes the dangers of navigation, so, also, wisdom, 
which is the art of living, would be coveted by none if 
it were altogether unprofitable, whereas now it is an ob- 
ject of general pursuit, from a persuasion that it both guides 
us to our best enjoyments, and points out to us the most 
effectual means for their attainment." * 

* Cicero, De Fin., Lib. I. 13. 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 363 

All the pleasures and pains of the mind (according to 
Epicurus) are derived from the recollection and anticipa- 
tion of bodily pleasures and pains ; but this recollection 
and anticipation he considered as contributing much more 
to our happiness or misery on the whole, than the pleas- 
ures and pains themselves. His philosophy vi^as, indeed, 
directed chiefly to inculcate this truth, and to withdraw 
our solicitude from the pleasures and pains themselves, 
which are not in our power, to the regulation of our recol- 
lections and anticipations, which depend upon ourselves. 
He placed happiness, therefore, in ease of body and tran- 
qvAllity of mind, but much more in the latter than in the 
former, insomuch that he affirmed a wise man might be 
happy in the midst of bodily torments. " Hear," says 
Cicero, " the language of Epicurus on his death-bed. 
' Epicurus to Herraachus, greeting. — While I am passing 
the last day of my life, and that the happiest, I write this 
epistle, oppressed, at the same time, with so many and such 
acute maladies, that it is scarcely possible to conceive 
that my sufferings are susceptible of augmentation. All 
these, however, are amply compensated by the mental 
joy I derive from the recollection of the reasonings and 
discoveries of which I am the author.' " The concluding 
sentence of this letter does more honor to Epicurus than 
any other part of it. " But you., as is worthy of your 
good-will tovi'ards me and philosophy, let it be your busi- 
ness to consider yourself as the guardian and protector of 
the children of Metrodorus." * 

Epicurus himself is represented as a person of inoffen- 
sive and even amiable manners. He is said to have taught 
his philosophy in a garden, where he lived a temperate 
and quiet life, enjoying what Thomson calls " the glad 
poetic ease of Epicurus, — seldom understood." He died 
at an advanced age, and was so much beloved and es- 
teemed by his followers, that his birthday was annually cel- 
ebrated as a festival. His private virtues, however, were 
probably, in a great measure, the effect of a happy natural 
constitution ; for his philosophy, besides destroying all 

* Dp, Fin.,, II. 30. The same letter is also found in Diosenes Laertius, 
Lib. X. 



364 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

those supports of morality that religion affords, tended 
avowedly to recommend a life of indolent and selfish in- 
dulgence, and a total abstraction from the concerns and 
duties of the world. Accordingly, we find that many of 
his disciples brought so much discredit on their principles 
by the dissoluteness of their lives, that (he word Epicu- 
rean came gradually to be understood as characteristical 
of a person devoted to sensual gratifications. 

The influence which these principles had on the man- 
ners of the later Romans has been remarked by many 
writers ; and it is not a little curious that it was clearly 
foreseen, ages before, by their virtuous and enlightened 
progenitors. This fact, which has not been sufficiently 
attended to, deserves the serious consideration of those 
who are disposed to call in question the effect of specula- 
tive opinions on national character. 

It was in the y^ar of Rome 471, and during the consul- 
ate of Fabricius, that the Romans seem to have received 
the first notice of the Epicurean doctrines. At that period 
the Tarentines had the address to instigate the Samnites, 
and almost all the other Italian states, to take arms against 
the republic, and also prevailed on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, 
to give them his assistance. In the course of the war, 
Fabricius, with two other persons of high rank, was sent 
to Pyrrhus's court, to treat with him about an exchange of 
prisoners ; and it was at a public entertainment given to 
them upon that occasion that Cineas, his minister and fa- 
vorite, gave the Roman ambassadors a general idea of the 
philosophical principles which Epicurus had begun to teach 
at Athens about twenty years before. The effect which 
this conversation had on the minds of the Roman ambas- 
sadors is an instructive fact in the history of philosophy. 

" I have frequently heard from some of my friends, who 
were much my seniors," says Cato to Scipio and Laelius, 
"a traditionary anecdote concerning Fabricius. They 
assured me, that, in the early part of their life, they were 
told by certain very old men of their acquaintance, that, 
when Fabricius was ambassador at the court of Pyrrhus, 
he expressed great astonishment at the account given him 
by Cineas of a philosopher at Athens, who maintained that 
the love of pleasure was universally the leading motive of 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 365 

all human aclions. My informer added, that, when Fabri- 
cius related this fact to M. Curius and Titus Coruncanius, 
they both joined in wishing that Pyrrhus and the whole 
Samnite nation might become converts to this extraordi- 
nary doctrine, as the people who were infected with such 
unmanly principles could not fail, they thought, of proving 
an easy conquest to their enemies. M. Curius had been 
intimately connected with Publius Decius, who in his fourth 
consulate (which was five years before the former entered 
upon that office) gloriously sacrificed his life to the pres- 
ervation of his country. This generous patriot was per- 
sonally known both to Fabricius and to Coruncanius ; and 
they were convinced, by what they experienced in their 
own breasts, as well as by the illustrious example of De- 
cius, that there is in certain actions an intrinsic rectitude 
and obligation which, with a noble contempt of M'hat the 
world calls pleasure, every great and generous mind will 
steadily keep in view as a sacred rule of conduct, and as 
the chief concern of life."* 

III. (2.) The Stoic.'] In opposition to the Epicurean 
doctrines already stated on the subject of happiness, the 
Stoics placed the supreme good in rectitude of conduct, 
without any regard to the event. They did not, however, 
as has been often supposed, recommend an indifference to 
external objects, or a life of inactivity and apathy. On 
the contrary, they taught that nature pointed out to us 
certain objects of choice and of rejection, and amongst 

* Cicero, De Senect. The system of morals generally ascribed to 
Epicurus is said to have been borrowed from Aristippus, who also 
taught that happiness consisted in bodily pleasure; but it is probable, as 
Mr. Smith observes, that his manner of applying Jiis principles was 
altogether his own. Indeed, we have the testimony of Diogenes Laerlius 
that Aristippus taught that happiness consisted in the present pleasures 
of the body, and not in any mental refinements on these pleasures, ac- 
cording to the system of Epicurus. — Lib. II. 18T. The life of Epicurus 
has been written in modern times by Gassendi, (who also ytlempted to 
revive his philosophy. Syntagma Philosopliia: Epicuri,) and by Bayle. 
Heineccius also mentions a book entitled, Jacob Rondellus, De Vila et 
de Moribus Epicvri, which has never fallen in my way. [For more 
modern authorities, see the general histories of philosophy by Tenne- 
mann, Ritter, and Degerando. Also, Warnekros, Jlpohgie und Lehen 
Epicurs. Steinhart in Ersch u. Gruher, Ailgem. Encyclop. Vol. XXXV. 
p. 459 et seq-l 

31 * 



366 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

these some to be more chosen and avoided than otliers ; 
and that virtue consisted in choosing and rejecting objects 
according to their intrinsic value. They admitted that 
heahh was to be preferred to sickness, riches to poverty ; 
the prosperity of our family, of our friends, of our country, 
to their adversity ; and they allowed, nay, they recom- 
mended, the most strenuous exertions to accomplish these 
desirable ends. They only contended that these objects 
should be pursued, not as the constituents of our happiness, 
but because we believe it to be agreeable to nature that 
we should pursue them ; and that, therefore, when we 
have done our utmost, we should regard the event as in- 
different. 

That this is a fair representation of the Stoical doctrine 
has been fully proved by Mr. Harris, in the very learned 
and judicious notes on his Dialogue concerning Happi- 
ness ; a performance which, although not entirely free 
from Mr. Harris's peculiarities of thought and style, does 
him so much honor, both as a writer and a moralist, that 
we cannot help regretting, while we peruse it, that he 
should so often have wasted his ingenuity and learning up- 
on scholastic subtilties, equally inapplicable to the pursuits 
of science and to the business of life. 

" The word 7i«'.9^oc," he observes, " which we usually 
render a passion^ means, in tlie Stoic sense, a perturba- 
tion^ and is always so translated by Cicero ; and the epi- 
thet anadric^ when applied to the loise man^ does not mean 
an exemption from passion, but an exemption from that per- 
turbation which is founded on erroneous opinions. The 
testimony of Epictetus is expressed to this purpose. ' I 
am not,' says he, ' to be apathetic like a statue, but I am 
withal to observe relations, both the natural and the adven- 
titious ; as the man of religion, as the son, as the brother, 
as the father, as the citizen.' And immediately before, he 
tells us, that ' a perturbation in no other way ever arises, 
but either when a desire is frustrated, or an aversion falls 
into that which it should avoid.' In which passage," says 
Harris, " it is observable that he does not make either 
desire or aversion nadi]^ or perturbations, but only the 
cause of perturbations when erroneously conducted." 

From a great variety of passages, which it is unneces- 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 367 

sary for me to transcribe, Harris concludes that " the 
Stoics, in the character of their virtuous man, included 
rational desire, aversion, and exultation ; included love 
and parental affection, friendship, and a general benevo- 
lence to all mankind ; and considered it as a duty arising 
from our very nature not to neglect the welfare of public 
society, but to be ever ready, according to our rank, to 
act either as the magistrate or as the private citizen." 

Nor did they exclude wealth from among the objects of 
choice. The Stoic Hecato, in his treatise Of Offices, 
quoted by Cicero, tells us, that " a wise man, while he 
abstains from doing any th'ng contrary to the customs, 
laws, and institutions of his country, ought to attend to his 
own fortune. For we do not desire to be rich for our- 
selves only, but for our children, relations, and friends, and 
especially for the commonwealth, inasmuch as the riches 
of individuals are the wealth of a state."* "Nay," 
says Cicero, on another occasion, " if the loise man could 
mend his condition by adding to the amplest possessions 
the poorest, meanest utensil, he would in no degree con- 
temn it." f 

From these quotations it sufficiently appears that the 
Stoical system, so far from withdrawing men from the du- 
ties of life, was eminently favorable to active virtue. Its 
peculiar and distinguishing tenet was, that our happiness 
did not depend on the attainment of the objects of our 
choice, but on the part that toe acted ; but this principle 
was inculcated, not to damp our exertions, but to lead us 
to rest our happiness only on circumstances which ive our- 
selves could command. " If I am going to sail," says 
Epictetus, " I choose the best ship and the best pilot, and 
I wait for the fairest weather that my circumstances and 
duty will allow. Prudence and propriety, the principles 
which the gods have given me for the direction of my 
conduct, require this of me, but they require no more ; 
and if, notwithstanding, a storm arises, which neither the 
strength of the vessel nor the skill of the pilot is likely 
to withstand, I give myself no trouble about the conse- 
quences. All that I had to do is done already. The 

* De Off., III. 15. t De Flnibus, IV. 12. 



368 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

directors of my conduct never command me to be misera- 
ble, to be anxious, desponding, or afraid. Whetlier we 
are to be drowned or come to a harbour is the business of 
Jupiter, not mine. 1 leave it entirely to his determina- 
tion, nor ever break my rest with considering which way 
he is likely to decide it, but receive whatever comes with 
equal indifference and security." 

We may observe further, in favor of this noble system, 
that the scale of desirable objects which it exhibited was 
peculiarly calculated to encourage the social virtues. It 
represented, indeed, (in common with the theory of Epicu- 
rus,) self-love as the great spring of human actions ; but in 
the application of this erroneous principle to practice, its 
doctrines were favorable to the most enlarged, nay, to the 
most disinterested benevolence. It .taught that the pros- 
perity of two was preferable to that of one ; that of a city 
to that of a family ; and that of our country to all partial 
considerations. It was upon this very principle, added to 
a sublime sentiment of piety, that it founded its chief argu- 
ment for an entire resignation to the dispensations of Provi- 
dence. As all events are ordered by perfect wisdom and 
goodness, the Stoics concluded that whatever happens is 
calculated to produce the greatest good possible to the 
universe in general. As it is agreeable to nature, there- 
fore, that we should prefer the happiness of many to a (ew, 
and of all to that of many, they concluded that every event 
which happens is precisely that which we ourselves would 
have desired, if we had been acquainted with the whole 
scheme of the Divine administration. "In what sense," 
says Epictetus, "are some things said to be according to 
our nature, and others contrary to it ? It is in that sense 
in which we consider ourselves as separated and detached 
from all other things. For thus it may be said to be the 
nature of the foot to be always clean. But if you con- 
sider it as a foot, and not as something detached from the 
rest of the body, it must behoove it sometimes to trample 
in the dirt, and sometimes to tread upon thorns, and some- 
times, too, to be cut off for the sake of the whole body ; 
and if it refuses this, it is no longer a foot. Thus, too, 
ought we to conceive with respect to ourselves. What 
are you ? A man. If you consider yourself as some- 



THEORIES OF HAPPINESS. 369 

thing separated and detached, it is agreeable to your na- 
ture to live to old age, to be rich, to be in health. But 
if you consider yourself as a man, and as a part of the 
whole, upon account of that whole it will behoove you 
sometimes to be in sickness, sometimes to be exposed to 
the inconveniency of a sea voyage, sometimes to be in 
want, and at last, perhaps, to die before your time. Why, 
then, do you complain ? Do you not know that by doing 
so, as the foot ceases to be a foot, so you cease to be a 
man." 

In the writings, indeed, of some of the Stoics, we meet 
with some absurd and violent paradoxes about the perfect 
felicity of the wise man on the one hand, and the equality 
of misery among all those who fall short of this ideal char- 
acter on the other. " As all the actions of the loise man 
were perfect, so all those of the man who had not arrived 
at this supreme wisdom were faulty, and equally faulty. 
As one truth could not be more true, nor one falsehood 
more false, than another, so an honorable action could not 
be more honorable, nor a shameful one more shameful, 
than another. As, in shooting at a mark, the man who 
had missed it by an inch had equally missed it with him 
who had done so by a hundred yards, so the man who, 
in what appeared to us the most insignificant action, had 
acted improperly, and without a sufficient reason, was 
equally faulty with him who had done so in what appears 
to us the most important ; the man who had killed a cock, 
for example, improperly, and without a sufficient reason, 
with him who had murdered his father. 

" It is not, however," continues Mr. Smith, " by any 
means probable that these paradoxes formed a part of the 
original principles of Stoicism, as taught by Zeno and Cle- 
anthes. It is much more probable that they were added 
to it by their disciple, Chrysippus, whose genius seems to 
have been more fitted for systematizing the doctrines of 
hi^ preceptors, and adorning them with the imposing ap- 
pendages of artificial definitions and divisions, than for im- 
bibing the sublime spirit which they breathed." 

This apology, however, it must be confessed, will not 
extend to all the errors of the Stoical school. In particu- 
lar, it will not extend to the notions it inculcated on the 



370 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

subject o^ suicide, and, in general, on the air of defiance 
and gayety with which death was to be met. But to ac- 
count even for these, in some measure, by the pecuhar cir- 
cumstances of the times when this philosophy arose, Mr. 
Smith observes : — " The different republics of Greece 
were at home almost always distracted by the most furious 
factions, and abroad involved in the most sanguinary wars, 
in which each sought, not merely superiority or dominion, 
but either completely to extirpate all its enemies, or, Vvhat 
was not less cruel, to reduce them into the vilest of all 
states, — that of domestic slavery. The smallness of the 
greater part of those states, too, rendered it to each of 
them no very improbable event, that it might itself fall in- 
to that very calamity which it had so frequently inflicted 
or attempted to inflict on its neighbours. In this disor- 
derly state of things, the most perfect innocence, joined to 
the highest rank and the greatest services to the public, 
could give no security to any man, that, even at home and 
among his fellow-citizens, he was not, at some time or 
other, from the prevalence of some hostile and furious 
faction, to be condemned to the most cruel and ignomini- 
ous punishment. If he was taken prisoner of war, or if 
the city of which he was a member was conquered, he 
was exposed, if possible, to still greater injuries. As an 
American savage, therefore, prepares his death-song, and 
considers how he should act when he has fallen into the 
hands of his enemies, and is by them put to death in the 
most lingering tortures, and amidst the insults and deris- 
ion of all the spectators, so a Grecian patriot or hero 
could not avoid frequently employing his thoughts in con- 
sidering what he ought both to suffer and to do in banish- 
ment, in captivity, when reduced to slavery, when put to 
the torture, when brought to the scaffold. It was the busi- 
ness of their philosophers to prepare the death-song which 
the Grecian patriots and heroes might make use of on the 
proper occasions ; and of all the different sects, the Stoics, 
I think it must be acknowledged, had prepared by far the 
most animated and spirited song." * 

* Moral Sentiments, Part ,¥11. Soct. ii. Chap. i. 

The preceding extracts from Epictetus are also taken from the same 
chapter, and given in i\Ir. Smith's translation. 



THEOKIES OF HAPPINESS. - 371 

After all, it is impossible to deny that there is some 
foundation for a censure which Lord Bacon has some- 
where passed on this celebrated sect. " Certainly," says 
he, " the Stoics bestowed too much cost on death, and by 
their preparations made it more fearful." At least, 1 sus- 
pect this may be the tendency of some passages in their 
writings, in such a state of society as that in which we 
live ; but in perusing them, we ought always to remember 
the circumstances of those men to whom they were ad- 
dressed, and which are so eloqtuently described in the ob- 
servations just quoted from Mr. Smith. The practical 
reflection which Bacon adds to this censure is invaluable, 
and is strictly conformable to the spirit of the Stoical sys- 
tem, although he seems to state it by way of contrast to 
their principles. " It is as natural," says he, " to die, as 
to be born ; and to a little infant perhaps the one is as 
painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit 
is like one that is wounded in hot blood, who for a time 
scarce feels the hurt ; and therefore a mind fixed and bent 
upon somewhat that is good doth best avert the dolors of 
death." * 

" Hi mores, haec duri immota Catonis 
Secta fuit, servare modurn, finemque teiiere, 
Naturamque sequi, patriseque impendere vitam ; 
Nee sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo."t 

IV. .(3.) The Peripatetic. '\ The doctrine of the Peri- 
patetics on this subject appears to have coincided with 
that of the Pythagorean school, who defined happiness to 
be " the exercise of virtue in a prosperous life " (/(jnaig 
ugsxijg sv ilzvxia) ; a definition, like several others trans- 
mitted to us from the same source, which unites in a re- 
markable degree the merits of conciseness and of philo- 
sophical precision. 

In confirmation of this doctrine, the Pythagorean school 
observed that it was not the mere possession., but the exer- 
cise, of virtue that made men happy. | And for the proper 

* Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, Essay II. 

t Lucan. Phars., Lib. II. 1. 380. 

t See the fragments of this school, published in Gale's Opuscula My- 
thological Pliysica, et Elhica. [Also, the general histories of philosophy 
mentioned above; Ritterand Preller in their Historia Philosoph. GrcEco- 
Roman.; the article on Zenoin Bayle, Diet., and Biographic Vniveiselle.J 



372 DUTIES TO OUKSELVES. 

exercise of virtue, ihey thought that good fortune was as 
necessary as hght is for the exercise of the faculty of 
sight. The utmost length, accordingly, which they went, 
was to say, that the virtuous man in adversity was not 
miserable ; whereas the vicious and foolish were miserable 
in all situations of fortune. In another passage they say 
that the difference between God and man is, that God 
is perfect in himself, and needs nothing from without ; 
whereas the nature of man is imperfect and defective, and 
dependent on external cimumstances. Although, there- 
fore, we possess virtue, that is but the perfection of one 
part, namely, the mind ; but as we consist both of body 
and mind, the body also must be perfect of its kind. Nor 
is that alone sufficient ; but the prosperous exercise of 
virtue requires certain externals ; such as wealth, reputa- 
tion, friends, and, above all, a ivell-constituted state ; for 
without that the rational and social animal is imperfect, 
and unable to fulfil the purposes of its nature. 

The difference between the Peripatetics and Stoics in 
these opinions is beautifully stated by Cicero, in a passage 
strongly expressive of the elevation of his own chaiacter, 
as well as highly honorable to the two sects, whose doc- 
trines, while he contrasts them with each other, he plainly 
considered as both originating in the same pure and ardent 
zeal for the interests of morality. " Pugnant Stoici cum 
Peripateticis : alteri negant quidquam bonum esse nisi 
quod honestum sit ; alteri, plurimum se, et longe,' longe- 
que plurimum attribuere honestati, sed tamen et in cor- 
pore, et extra, esse quajdam bona. Certamen honestum, 
et disputatio splendida, omnis est enim de virtutis digni- 
tate contentio." * 

* De Finibus, Lib. 11. 21. " The Stoics oppose the Peripatetics: one 
sect denies that any thing can be good unless it is virtuous ; while the 
other, after allowing very exalted and distinguished qualities to virtue, 
still thinks that there are some bodily and external circumstances which 
are good in some degree. The contest is generous; the diflerence is 
glorious; for all the dispute is who shall most ennoble virtue." See 
Arist., Ethic. JVicoin., Lib. L 

Cousin, in his Fragments Pliilosnphiques, Tome I. p. 279, observes : — 
" Not only do we unceasingly aspire after happiness as sensitive beings, 
but when we have done well, we judge, as intelligent and moral beings, 
that we are icorthy of happiness. Hence tjje necessary principle of merit 
and of demerit, the origin and foundation of all our ideas of reward 
and punishment; — a principle continually confounded either with the 
desire of happiness or with the moral law. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. 373 

Section III. 

MEANS OF PROMOTING AND SECURING HAPPINESS. 

I. Introductory Remarks.] From the slight view now 
given of the systems of philosophers with respect to the 
Sovereign Good, it may he assumed as an acknowledged 
and indisputable fact, that happiness arises chiefly from 
the mind. The Stoics undoubtedly expressed this too 
strongly when they said, that to a wise man external cir- 
cumstances are indifferent. Yet it must be confessed, 
that happiness depends much less on these than is com- 
monly imagined ; and that, as there is no situation so 
prosperous as to exclude the torments of malice, coward- 
ice, and remorse, so there is none so adverse as to with- 
hold the enjoyments of a benevolent, resolute, and upright 
heart. 

If, from the sublime idea of a perfectly wise and vir- 
tuous man, we descend to such characters as the world 
presents to us, some important limitations of the Stoical 
conclusions become necessary. Mr. Hume has justly 
remarked, that, " as in the bodily system a toothache 
produces more violent convulsions of pain than phthisis or 
a dropsy, so, in the economy of the mind, although all vice 
be pernicious, yet the disturbance or pain is not measured 
out by nature with exact proportion to the degree of vice ; 
nor is the man of highest virtue, even abstracting from ex- 
ternal accidents, always the most happy. A gloomy and 
melancholy disposition is certainly to our sentiments a 
vice or imperfection ; but as it may be accompanied with 
a great sense of honor and great integrity, it may be found 
in very worthy characters, though it is sufficient alone to 

"Behold why it is that the question of the sovereign good has never 
been resolved. Philosophers have sought a simple solution for a com- 
plex question, not having the two principles which, together, are capable 
of resolving it completely. 

" Epicurean solution : — the satisfaction of the desire of happiness. 

"Stoical solution : — the fulfilment of the moral law. 

" The true solution is found in the harmony existing between virtue, 
and happiness as merited by it; for the two elements in this duality are 
not equal. Happiness is the consequent; virtue is the principle. Vir- 
tue, though not the sole element of the sovereign good, is always the 
chief." — Ed. 

32 



374 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

embitter life, and render the person afflicted wl^h it com- 
pletely miserable. On the other hand, a selfish villain 
may possess a spring and alacrity ot" temper, a certain 
gayety of heart, which is rewarded much beyond its merit ; 
and when attended with good fortune, will compensate 
for the uneasiness and remorse arising from all the other 
vices." 

However this may be, it is certain that various mental 
qualities, which have no immediate connection with moral 
desert, are necessary to insure happiness. In proof of 
this remark, it is sufficient to consider how much our 
tranquillity is liable to be affected, — 

1 . By our temper ; 

2. By our imagination ; 

3. By our opinions ; and 

4. By our habits. 

In all these respects the mind may be influenced to a 
great degree by original constitution or by early educa- 
tion ; and when this influence happens to be unfavorable, 
it is not to be corrected at once by the precepts of phi- 
losophy. Much, however, may be done, undoubtedly, in 
such instances, by our own persevering efforts ; and 
therefore the particulars now enumerated deserve our 
attention, not only from their connection with the specu- 
lative question concerning the essentials of happiness, but 
on account of the practical conclusions to which the con- 
sideration of them may lead. 

II. (1.) Influence of the Temper on Happiness.'] The 
word temper is used in difierent senses. Sometimes we 
apply to it the epithets gay, lively, melancholy, gloomy ; 
on other occasions, the ep'ahets fretful, passionate, sullen, 
cool, equable, gentle. It is in the last sense we use it at 
present, to denote the habitual state of a man's mind in 
point of irascibility ; or, in other words, to mark the ha- 
bitual predominance of the benevolent or malevolent affec- 
tions in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures. 

The connection between this part of the character of an 
individual and the habitual state of his mind in point of 
happiness is obvious from what was formerly observed 
concerning the pleasures and pains attached respectively 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. TEMPER. 375 

to the exercise of our benevolent and malevolent affec- 
tions. As Nature has strengthened the social ties among 
mankind, by annexing a certain charm to every exercise 
of good-will and of kindness, so she has provided a check 
on all the discordant passions, by that agitation and dis- 
quiet which are their inseparable concomitants. This is 
true even with respect to resentment, how justly soever it 
may be provoked by the injurious conduct of others. It 
is always accompanied with an unpleasant feeling, which 
warns us, as soon as we have taken the necessary meas- 
ures for our own security, to banish every sentiment of 
malice from the heart. On the due regulation of this part 
of our constitution, our happiness in life materially de- 
pends ; and there is no part of it whatever where it is in 
our power, by our persevering efforts, to do more to cure 
our constitutional or our acquired infirmities. 

Resentment was formerly distinguished into instinctive 
and deliberate. In some men the animal or instinctive im- 
pulse is stronger than in others. Where this is the case, 
or where proper care has not been taken in early educa- 
tion to bring it under restraint, a quick or irascible temper 
is the consequence. This fault is frequently observable 
in affectionate and generous characters, and impairs their 
happiness, not so much by the effects it produces on their 
minds as by the eventual misfortunes to which it exposes 
them. The sentiments of ill-will which such men feel 
are only momentary, and the habitual state of their mind 
is benevolent and happy ; but as their reason is the sport 
of every accident, the best dispositions of the heart can 
at no time give them any security that they shall not, be- 
fore they sleep, experience some paroxysm of insanity, 
which shall close all their prospects of happiness for ever. 
A frequent and serious consideration of the fatal conse- 
quences which may arise from sudden and ungoverned 
passion cannot fail to have some tendency to check its ex- 
cesses. It is an infirmity which is often produced by some 
fault in early education ; by allowing children to exercise 
authority over their dependents, and not providing for 
them, in the opposition of their equals, a sufficient disci- 
pline and preparation for the conflicts they may expect to 
struggle with in future life. 



376 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

When the animal resentment does not immediately sub- 
side, it must be supported by an opinion of bad intention 
in its object ; and, consequently, when this happens to an 
individual so habitually as to be characteristic of his tem- 
per, it indicates a disposition on his part to put unfavora- 
ble constructions on the actions of others, or (as we com- 
monly express it) to take things by the wrong handle. In 
some instances this may proceed from a settled conviction 
of the worthlessness of mankind ; but in general it orig- 
inates in self-dissatisfaction, occasioned by the conscious- 
ness of vice or folly, which leads the person who feels it 
to withdraw his attention from himself by referring the 
causes of his ill-humor to the imaginary faults of his neigh- 
bours. Such men do not wait till provocation is given 
them, but look out anxiously for occasions of quarrel, 
creating to themselves, by the help of imagination, an ob- 
ject suited to that particular humor they wish to indulge ; 
and, when their resentment is once excited, they obsti- 
nately refuse to listen to any thing that may be offered in 
the way of extenuation or apology. In feeble minds, this 
displays itself in peevishness, which vents itself languidly 
upon any object it meets. In more vigorous and deter- 
mined minds, it produces violent and boisterous passion. 
For, as Butler has well remarked, both of these seem to be 
the operation of the same principle, appearing in differ- 
ent forms, according to the constitution of the individual. 
" In the one case, the humor discharges itself at once ; 
in the other, it is continually discharging." 

There is, too, a species of misanthropy, which is some- 
times grafted on a worthy and benevolent heart. When 
the standard of moral excellence we have been accus- 
tomed to conceive is greatly elevated above the common 
attainments of humanity, we are apt to become too diffi- 
cult and fastidious (if I may use the expression) in our 
moral taste ; or, in plainer language, we become unreason- 
ably censorious of the follies and vices of the age in w^hich 
we live. In such cases it may happ.en that the native be- 
nevolence of the mind, by being habitually directed to- 
wards ideal characters, may prove a source of real disaf- 
fection and dislike to those with whom we associate. 
The only effectual remedy for this evil (as I have had 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. TEMPER. 377 

occasion to observe in another connection *) is society or 
business, together with a habit of directing the attention 
rather to the improvement of our own characters, than to 
a jealous and suspicious examination of the motives which 
influence the conduct of our neighbours. 

This last observation leads me to remark, further, that 
one great cause of this perversion of our nature is a very 
common and fatal prejudice, which leads men to believe 
that the degree of their own virtue is proportioned to the 
justness and the liveliness of their moral /ee/mg-s ; where- 
as, in truth, virtue consists neither in liveliness of feeling 
nor in rectitude of judgment, but in an habitual regard to 
our sense of duty in the conduct of life. To enlighten, 
indeed, our conscience with respect to the part which we 
ourselves have to act, and to cultivate that quick and deli- 
cate sense of propriety which may restrain us from every 
offence, how trifling soever it may appear, against the laws 
of morality, is an essential part of our duty ; and what a 
strong sense of duty, aided by a sound understanding, will 
naturally lead to. But to exercise our powers of moral 
judgment and moral feeling on the character and conduct 
of our neighbours is so far from being necessarily con- 
nected with our moral improvement, that it has frequently 
a tendency to withdraw our attention from the real state 
of our own characters, and to flatter us with a belief, that 
the degree in which we possess the different virtues is pro- 
portioned to the indignation excited in our minds by the 
want of them in others. That this rule of judgment is at 
least not infallible may be inferred from the common ob- 
servation, (justified by the experience of every man who 
has paid any attention to human life,) that the most scru- 
pulous men in their own conduct are generally the most 
indulgent to the faults of their fellow-creatures. I will 
not go quite so far as to assert, with Dr. Hutcheson, (al- 
though I believe his remark has much foundation in truth,) 
that " men have commonly the good or the bad qualities 
which they ascribe to mankind." I shall content myself 
with repeating, after Mr. Addison, that, " among all the 
monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so 

* See p. 249 of this volume. 

32* 



378 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

odious, nor, indeed, so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a 
rigid, severe temper in a wortliless man "; * — an observa- 
tion which, from the manner in which he states it, evi- 
dently shows that he did not consider this union as a very 
rare occurrence among the numberless inconsistencies in 
our moral judgments and habits. 

But what we are chiefly concerned at present to remark 
is the tendency of a ceosorious disposition with respect to 
our own happiness. That favorable opinions of our spe- 
cies, and those benevolent affections towards them which 
such opinions produce, are sources of exquisite enjoyment 
to those who entertain them, no person will dispute. But 
there are two very different ways in which men set about 
the attainment of this satisfaction. One set of men aim 
at modelling the world to their own wish, and repine in 
proportion to the disappointments they experience in their 
plans of general reformation. Another, while they do 
what they can to improve their fellow-creatures, consider 
it as their chief business to watch over their own charac- 
ters ; and as they cannot succeed to their wish in making 
mankind what they ought to be, they study to accommo- 
date their views and feelings to the order of Providence. 
They exert their ingenuity in apologizing for folly and 
misconduct, and are always more disposed to praise than 
to blame : and when they see unquestionable and un- 
pardonable delinquencies, they avail themselves of such 
occurrences, not as occasions for venting indignation and 
abuse, but as lessons of admonition to themselves, and as 
calls to attempt the amendment of the delinquent by gentle 
and friendly remonstrances. Of these two plans, it is easy 
to see that the one, while it appears flattering to the indo- 
lence of the individual, (because it requires no efforts of 
self-denial,) must necessarily engage him in impracticable 
and hopeless efforts. The other, although it requires 
force of mind to put it in execution, is within the reach 
of every man to accomplish in a degree highly important 
to his own character and to his ovi'n comfort. This, in- 
deed, I apprehend, is the great secret of happiness, — to 
study to accommodate our own minds to things external, 

* Spectator, No. 169. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. TEMPER. 379 

rather than to accommodate things external to ourselves ; 
and there are no instances in which the practice of the 
rule is of more consequence than in our intercourse 
with our fellow-creatures. Let us do what we can to 
amend them, but let us trust for our happiness to what 
depends on ourselves. Nor is there any delusion neces- 
sary for this purpose ; for the fairest views of human char- 
acter are in truth the justest ; and the more intimately 
we know mankind, the less we shall be misled by the par- 
tialities of pride and self-love, and the more shall we be 
disposed to acknowledge the merits, and to pardon the 
frailties, of others. 

Another expedient of very powerful effect is to suppress, 
as far as possible, the external signs of peevishness or of 
violence. So intimate is the connection between mind 
and body, that the mere imitation of any strong expression 
has a tendency to excite the corresponding passion ; and, 
on the other hand, the suppression of the external sign has 
a tendency to compose the passion which it indicates. It 
is said of Socrates, that, whenever he felt the passion of 
resentment rising in his mind, he became instantly silent ; 
and I have no doubt, that, by observing this rule, he not 
only avoided many an occasion of giving offence to others, 
but added much to the comfort of his own life, by killing 
the seeds of those malignant affections which are the great 
bane of human happiness. 

Something of the same kind, though proceeding from a 
less worthy motive, we may see daily exemplified in the 
case of those men who are peevish and unhappy in their 
own families, while in the company of strangers they are 
good-humored and cheerful. At home they give vent to 
all their passions without restraint, and exasperate their 
original irritability by the reaction of that bodily agitation 
which it occasions. In promiscuous society the restraints 
of ceremony render this impossible. They find them- 
selves obliged to conceal studiously whatever emotions of 
dissatisfaction they may feel, and soon come to experi- 
ence, in fact, that gentle and accommodating temper of 
which they have been striving to counterfeit the appearance. 

The influence of the temper on happiness is much in- 
creased by another circumstance ; that the same causes 



380 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

which alienate our affections frona our fellow-creatures are 
apt to suggest unfavorable views of the course of human 
affairs, and lead the mind by an easy transition to gloomy 
conceptions of the general order of the universe. In this 
state of mind, when, in the language of Hamlet, " Man 
delights me not,''^ the sentiment of misanthropy seldom 
fails to be accompanied with that dark and hopeless phi- 
losophy which Shakspeare has, with such exquisite 
knowledge of the human heart, described as springing up 
with it from the same root. " This goodly frame, the 
earth, appears a sterile promontory ; — this majestical roof, 
fretted with golden fire, a foul and pestilent congregation 
of vapors ; — and Man himself, — noble in reason, infinite 
in faculties, — this beauty of the world, this paragon of 
animals, — seems but the quintessence of dust.'' ^ Such a 
temper and such views are not only to the possessor the 
completion of wretchedness, but, by the proofs they ex- 
hibit of insensibility and ingratitude towards the Great 
Source of happiness and perfection, they argue some de- 
fect in those moral feelings to which many men lay claim, 
who affect an indifference to all serious impressions and 
sentiments. They argue at least what Milton has finely 
called a '■'■ sullenness against nature,^' — a disposition of 
mind which no man could possibly feel whose temper was 
rightly constituted towards his fellow-creatures. How 
congenial to the best emotions of the heart is the follow- 
ing sentiment in his Tractate on Education ! " In those 
vernal seasons of the year, when the air is soft and pleas- 
ant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to 
go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicings 
with heaven and earth." 

III. (2.) Influence of the Imagination on Happiness.} 
One of the principal effects of a liberal education is to ac- 
custom us to withdraw our attention from the objects of 
our present perceptions, and to dwell at pleasure on the 
past, the absent, and the future. How much it must en- 
large in this way the sphere of our enjoyment or suffering 
is obvious ; for (not to mention the recollection of the 
past) all that part of our happiness or misery wdiich arises 
from our hopes or our fears derives its existence entirely 
from the power of imagination. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION. 381 

It is not, however, from education alone that the dif- 
ferences among individuals in respect of this faculty seem 
to arise. Even among those who have enjoyed the same 
advantages of mental culture, we find some men in whom 
it never makes any considerable appearance, — men whose 
thoughts seem to be completely engrossed with the objects 
and events with which their senses are conversant, and on 
whose minds the impressions produced by what is absent 
and future are so comparatively languid, that they seldom 
or never excite their passions or arrest their attention. In 
others, again, the coloring which imagination throws on 
the objects they conceive is so brilliant, that even the pres- 
ent impressions of sense are unable to stand the compari- 
son ; and the thoughts are perpetually wandering from this 
world of realities to fairy scenes of their own creation. In 
such men, the imagination is the principal source of their 
pleasurable or painful sensations, and their happiness or 
misery is in a great measure determined by the gay or 
melancholy cast which this faculty has derived from origi- 
nal constitution, or A"om acnuired habits. 

When the hopes or the /ears which imagination inspires 
prevail over the present importunity of our sensual appe- 
tites, it is a proof of the superiority which the intellectual 
part of our character has acquired over the animal ; and as 
the course of life which wisdom and virtue prescribe re- 
quires frequently a sacrifice of the present to the future, 
a warm and vigorous imagination is sometimes of essential 
use, by exhibiting those lively prospects of solid and per- 
manent happiness which may counteract the allurements of 
present pleasure. In those who are enslaved completely 
by their sensual appetites, imagination may indeed operate 
in anticipating future gratification, or it may blend itself 
with memory in the recollection of past enjoyment ; but 
where this is the case, imagination is so far from answer- 
ing its intended purpose, that it establishes an unnatural 
alliance between our intellectual powers and our animal de- 
sires, and extends the empire of the latter, by filling up 
the intervals of actual indulgence with habits of thought, 
more degrading and ruinous, if possible, to the rational 
part of our being, than the time which is employed in 
criminal gratification. 



382 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

In mentioning, however, the influence of imagination on 
happiness, what I had chiefly in view was the addition 
which is made to our enjoyments or sufferings, on the 
whole, by the predominance of hope or of/e«r in the habit- 
ual state of our minds. One man is continually led, by 
the complexion of his temper, to forebode evil to himself 
and to the world ; while another, after a thousand disap- 
pointments, looks forward to the future with exultation, 
and feels his confidence in Providence unshaken. One 
principal cause of such difi^erences is undoubtedly the natu- 
ral constitution of the mind in point o( fortitude. 

It may be worth while here to remark, that what we 
properly call cowardice is entirely a disease of the imagi- 
nation. It does not always imply an impatience under 
present suffering. On the contrary, it is frequently ob- 
served in men who submit quietly to the evils which 
they have actually experienced, and of which they have 
thus learned to measure the extent with accuracy. Nay, 
there are cases in which patience is the offspring of cow- 
ardice., the imagination magnifying future dangers to such 
a degree as to render present sufi^erings comparatively in- 
significant. Men of this description always judge it safer 
to "bear the ills they know, than fly to others that they 
know not of," and, of consequence, when under the 
pressure of pain and disease, scruple to employ those vig- 
orous remedies, which, while they give them a chance for 
recovery, threaten them with the possibility of a more im- 
minent danger. The brave, on the contrary, are not al- 
ways patient under distress ; and they sometimes, perhaps, 
owe their bravery in part to this impatience. We may 
remark an apt illustration of this observation in the two 
sexes. The male is more courageous, but more impa- 
tient of suffering ; the female more timid, but more re- 
signed and serene under severe pain and aflliction. 

Allowance being made for constitutional biases, the two 
great sources of a desponding imagination are superstition 
and skepticism. Of the former, the unhappy victims 
are many, and have been so in all ages of the world, al- 
though their number may be expected gradually to diminish 
in proportion to the progress and the diffusion of knowl- 
edge. All of us, however, have had an opportunity of 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION. 383 

witnessing enough of its effects in those remains which are 
still to be found, in many parts of this country, of the old 
prejudices with respect to apparitions and spectres, to be 
able to form an idea of what mankind must have suffered 
in the ages of Gothic ignorance, when these weaknesses 
of the uninformed mind were skilfully made use of by an 
ambitious priesthood as an engine of ecclesiastical policy. 
Skepticism.) too, when carried to an extreme, can scarcely 
fail to produce similar effects. As it encourages the 
notion that all events are regulated by chance, if it does 
not alarm the mind with terror, it extinguishes at least 
every ray of hope ; and such is the restless activity of the 
mind, that it may be questioned whether the agitation of 
fear be a source of more complete wretchedness than that 
listlessness which deprives us of all interest about futurity, 
and represents to us the present moment alone as ours. 
Nor is this all. A complete skepticism is so unnatural a 
state to the human understanding, that it was probably 
never realized in any one instance. Nay, I believe it will 
generally be found, that, in proportion to the violence of 
a man's disbelief on those important subjects which are 
essential to human happiness, the more extravagant is his 
credulity on other articles, where the fashion of the times 
does not brand credulity as a weakness ; for the mind 
must have something distinct from the objects of sense on 
which to repose itself ; and those principles of our nature 
on which religion is founded, if they are prevented from 
developing themselves under the direction of an enlighten- 
ed reason, will infallibly disclose themselves, in one way 
or another, in the character and the conduct. 

Of this no stronger proof can be produced, than that the 
same period of the eighteenth century, and the same part 
of Europe, which were most distinguished by the triumphs 
of a skeptical philosophy, were also distinguished by a 
credulity sa extraordinary, as to encourage and support a 
greater number of visionaries and impostors than had ap- 
peared since the time of the revival of letters. The pre- 
tenders to animal magnetism, and the revivers of the Rosi- 
crucian mysteries, are but two instances out of many that 
might be mentioned. 

Such, then, are the miseries of ill-regulated imagina- 



384 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

tion, whether arising from constitutional biases or from 
the acquisition of erroneous opinions ; and ihey are mis- 
eries which, when they affect habitually the state of the 
mind, are sufficient to poison all the enjoyments which 
fortune can offer. To those, on the contrary, whose 
education has been fortunately conducted, this faculty 
opens inexhaustible sources of delight, presenting con- 
tinually to their thoughts the fairest views of mankind and 
of Providence, and, under the deepest gloom of adverse 
fortune, gilding the prospects of futurity. 

I have remarked, in the first volume of my Philosophy 
of the Human JVIind, that what we call sensibility depends 
in a great measure on the degree of imagination we pos- 
sess ; and hence, in such a world as ours, checkered as it 
is with good and evil, there must be in every mind a mix- 
ture of pleasure and of pain, proportioned to the interest 
which imagination leads it to take in the fortunes of man- 
kind. It is even natural and reasonable for a benevolent 
disposition, (notwithstanding what Mr. Smith has so in- 
geniously alleged to the contrary,*) to dwell more habitu- 
ally on the gloomy than on the gay aspect of human af- 
fairs ; for the fortunate stand in no need of our assistance ; 
while, amidst the distractions of our own personal con- 
cerns, the wretched require all the assistance which our 
imagination can lend them, to engage our attention to their 
distresses. In this sympathy, however, with the general 
sufferings of humanity, the pleasure far overbalances the 
pain ; not only on account of that secret charm which ac- 
companies all the modifications of benevolence, but be- 
cause it is they alone whose prospects of futurity are san- 
guine, and whose confidence in the final triumph of reason 
and of justice is linked with all the best principles of the 
heart, who are likely to make a common cause with the 
oppressed and the miserable. This, therefore, (although 
we frequently apply to it the epithet melancholy,) is, on the 
whole, a happy state of mind, and has no connection with 
what we commonly call loio spirits^ — a disease where the 
pain is unmixed, and which is always accompanied, either 
as a cause or effect, by the most intolerable of all feelings, 

* Theory of Moral Sentimtnts, Part III. Chap. iii. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. IMAGINATION. 385 

a sentiment of self-dissatisfaction ; whereas the temper I 
have now alluded to is felt only by those who are at peace 
with themselves and with the whole world. Such is that 
species of melancholy which Thomson has so patheti- 
cally described as exerting a peculiar influence at that 
season of the year (his own favorite and inspiring season) 
when the " dark winds of autumn return," and when the 
falling leaves and the naked fields fill the heart at once 
with mournful presages, and with tender recollections. 

" He conies ! he comes ! in every breeze the Poicer 
or philosophic melancholy comes ! 
His near approach the sudden starting tear, 
The glowing cheek, the mild, dejected air, 
The softened feature, and the beating lieart, 
Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare. 
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes; 
Inflames imagination; through tlie breast 
Infuses every tenderness ; and far 
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought." 

It will not, I think, be denied, that an imagination of 
the cast here described, while it has an obvious tendency 
to refine the taste and to exalt the character, enlarges very 
widely, in the man who possesses it, the sphere of his en- 
joyment. It is, however, no less indisputable, that this 
faculty requires an uncommon share of good sense to keep 
it under proper regulation, and to derive from it the pleas- 
ures it was intended to afford, without suffering it either 
to mislead the judgment in the conduct of life, or to im- 
pair our relish for the moderate gratifications which are 
provided for our present condition. 

The inconveniences of an ill-regulated imagination have 
appeared to some philosophers to be so alarming, that they 
have concluded it to be one of the most essential objects 
of education to repress as much as possible this dangerous 
faculty. But in this, as in other instances, it is in vain to 
counteract the purposes of Nature ; and all that human 
wisdom ought to attempt is to study the ends which she 
has apparently in view, and to cooperate with the means 
which she has provided for their attainment. The very 
argument on which these philosophers have proceeded 
justifies the remark T have now made, and encourages us 
to follow out the plan I have recommended ; for surely 
33 



386 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

the more cruel the effecis of a deranged imagination, the 
happier are the consequences to be expected from this 
part of our constitution, if properly regulated, and if direct- 
ed to its destined purposes by good sense and philosophy. 
It is justly remarked by an author in the Taller,* as an 
acknowledged fact, that, " of all writings, licentious poeras 
do soonest corrupt the heart. And why," continues he, 
" should we not be as universally persuaded that the grave 
and serious performances of such as write in the most en- 
gaging manner, by a kind of Divine impulse, must be the 
most effectual persuasive to goodness ? The most active 
principle in our mind is the imagination. To it a good 
poet makes his court perpetually, and by this faculty takes 
care to gain it first. Our passions and inclinations come 
over next, and our reason surrenders itself with pleasure 
in the end. Thus the whole soul is insensibly betrayed 
into morality, by bribing the fancy with beautiful and 
agreeable images of those very things that, in the books 
of the philosophers, appear austere, and have at the best 
but a kind of forbidding aspect. In a word, the poets 
do, as it were, strew the rough paths of virtue so full of 
flowers, that we are not sensible of the uneasiness of them, 
and imagine ourselves in the midst of pleasures, and the 
most bewitching allurements, at the time we are making a 
progress in the severest duties of life." 

Even in those men, however, whose education has not 
been so systematically conducted, and whose associations 
have been formed by accident, notwithstanding the many 
acute sufferings to which they may be exposed, I am per- 
suaded that (except in some very rare combinations of 
circumstances) this part of our constitution is a more 
copious source of pleasure than of pain. After all the 
complaints that have been made of the peculiar distresses 
incident to cultivated minds, who would exchange the sen- 
sibility of his intellectual and moral being for the apathy of 
those whose only avenues of pleasure and pain are to be 
found in their animal nature, — who "move thoughtlessly 
in the narrow circle of their existence, and to whom the 
falling leaves present no idea but that of approaching 
winter " .'' 

* No. 98. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. OPINIONS. 387 

I shall conclude these very imperfect hints on a most 
important subject with remarking the inefficacy of mere 
reasoning or argument, in correcting the effects of early 
impressions and prejudices. More is to be expected from 
the opposite associations, which may be gradually formed 
by a new course of studies and of occupations, or by a 
complete change of scenes, of habits, and of society. 

IV. (3.) Lnfluence of Opinions on Happiness.^ By 
opinions are here meant, not merely speculative conclu- 
sions to which we give our assent, but convictions which 
have taken root in the mind, and exert a constant and 
abiding influence on our dispositions and conduct. 

Of these opinions a very great and important part are, 
in the case of all mankind, interwoven by education with 
their first habits of thinking, or are insensibly imbibed 
from the manners of the times. 

Where such opinions are erroneous, they may often be 
corrected to a great degree by the persevering efforts of a 
reflecting and vigorous mind ; but as the number of minds 
capable of reflection is comparatively small, it becomes a 
duty on all who have themselves experienced the happy 
effects of juster and more elevated views, to impart, as 
far as they are able, the same blessing to others. The 
subject is of too great extent to be here prosecuted ; but 
the reader will find it discussed at great length in a very 
valuable section of Dr. Ferguson's Principles of Jlloral 
and Political Science.* 

Of the doctrines contained in this section, the following 
abstract is given by the same writer in his Institutes of 
JMoral Philosophy. 

" It is, unhappy to lay the pretensions of human nature 
so low as to check its exertions. The despair of virtue 
is still more unhappy than the despair of knowledge. 

" It is unhappy to entertain notions of what men ac- 
tually are, so high as, upon trial and disappointment, to 
run into the opposite extreme of distrust. 

" It is unhappy to rest our own choice of good qualities 
on the supposition, that we are to meet with such qualities 

* Part II. Chap. i. Sect. viii. 



388 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

in other men ; or to apprehend that want of merit in other 
men will dispense with that justice or liherality of conduct 
which we ought to maintain. 

" It is unhappy to consider perfection as the standard 
by which we are to censure others, not as the rule by 
which we are to conduct ourselves. 

"• It is a wretched opinion, that happiness consists in a 
freedom from trouble, or in having nothing to do. In 
consequence of this opinion, men complain of what might 
employ them agreeably. By declining every duty and 
every active engagement, they render life a burden, and 
then complain that it is so. By declining business to go 
in search of amusement, they reject what is fitted to oc- 
cupy them, and search in vain for something else to quicjc- 
ed the languor of a vacant mind. 

" It is therefore unhappy to entertain an opinion, that 
any thing can amuse us better than the duties of our sta- 
tion, or than that which we are in the present moment 
called upon to do. 

'' It is an unhappy opinion, that beneficence is an effort 
of self-denial, or that we lay our fellow-creatures under 
great obligations by the kindness we do them. 

" It is an unhappy opinion, that any thing whatever is 
preferable to happiness."* 

On the other hand, "it is happy," continues the same 
author, " to value personal qualities above every other 
consideration, and to state perfection as a guide to our- 
selves, not as a rule by which to censure others. 

"It is happy to rely on what is in our own power ; to 
value the characters of a worthy, benevolent, and strenuous 

* In illustration of this last remark, Dr. Ferguson quotes in a note the 
following passage from the Tatler : — "There is hardly a man to be 
found, who would not rather be in pain to appear happy, than be really 
happy to appear miserable." 

The author of the Fable of the Bees (see Remark .1/.) has also said, — 
"There is nothing so ravishing to the proud," (he should have said to 
the vain,) " as to be thought happy." 

Does not this general anxiety to assume the appearance of happiness 
proceed from the universal conviction of the connection between happi- 
ness and virtue ? By counterfeiting the outward signs of happiness, a 
vain man, without any offensive violation of modesty, lays claim indi- 
rectly to all those moral qualities of which happiness is commonly un- 
derstood to be the fruit and the reward. 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. OPINIONS. 389 

mind, not as a form merely to be observed in our con- 
duct, but as the completion of what we have to wish for in 
human life, and to consider the debasements of a malicious 
and cowardly nature as the extreme misery to which we 
are exposed. 

"It is happy to have continually in view, that we are 
members of society, and of the community of mankind ; 
that we are instruments in the hand of God for the good 
of his creatures ; that, if we are ill members of society, or 
unwilling instruments in the hand of God, we do our ut- 
most to counteract our nature, to quit our station, and to 
undo ourselves. 

" '/ am in the station lohich God has assigned me,' says 
Epictetus. With this reflection, a man may be happy in 
every station ; v^^ithout it, he cannot be happy in any. Is 
not the appointment of God sufficient to outweigh every 
other consideration .'' This rendered the condition of a 
slave agreeable to Epictetus, and that of a monarch to 
Antoninus. This consideration renders any situation 
agreeable to a rational nature, which delights not in partial 
interests, but in universal good." 

This excellent passage contains a summary of the most 
valuable principles of the Stoical school. One of their 
doctrines, however, I could have wished that Dr. Fer- 
guson had touched upon with his masterly hand ; I mean 
that which relates to the inconsistencies which most men 
fall into in their expectations of happiness, as well as in 
the estimates they form of the prosperity of others. The 
following quotation from Epictetus will explain sufficiently 
the doctrine to which I allude. 

" What is more reasonable than that they who take 
pains for any thing should get most in that particular for 
which they take pains .'' They have taken pains for 
power, you for right principles ; they for riches, you for 
a proper use of the appearances of things. See whether 
they have the advantage of you in that for which you have 
taken pains, and which they neglect. If they are in power 
and you not, why will you not speak the truth to yourself, 
that you do nothing for the sake of power, but that they 
do every thing ? ' No, but since I take care to have right 
principles, it is more reasonable that I should have power.' 
33* 



390 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

Yes, in respect to what you take care about, — your prin- 
ciples. But give up to others the things in which they 
have taken more care than you. Else it is just as if, be- 
cause you have right principles, you should think it fit 
that, when you shoot an arrow, you should hit the mark 
better than an archer, or that you should forge better than 
a smith." 

Upon the foregoing passage a very ingenious and elegant 
writer, Mrs. Barbauld, has written a commentary so full 
of good sense and of important practical morality, that I 
am sure I run no hazard of trespassing on the patience of 
the re'ader by the length of the following extracts. 

" As most of the unhappiness in the world arises rather 
from disappointed desires than from positive evil, it is of 
the utmost consequence to attain jgst notions of the laws 
and order of the universe, that we may not vex ourselves 
with fruidess wishes, or give way to groundless and un- 
reasonable discontent We should consider this 

world as a great mart of commerce, where fortune exposes 
to our view various commodities, riches, ease, tranquillity, 
fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at a 
settled price. Our time, our labor, our ingenuity, is so 
much readj"^ money, which we are to lay out to the best 
advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject ; but stand 
to your own judgment, and do not, like children, when 
you have purchased one thing, repine that you do not pos- 
sess another which you did not purchase. Such is the 
force of well-regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous 
exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will gener- 
ally insure success. Would you, for instance, be rich .'' 
Do you think that single point worth the sacrificing every 
thing else to ? You may, then, be rich. Thousands have 
become so from the lowest beginnings, from toil and patient 
diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense 
and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, 
of a vacant mind, of a free, unsuspicious temper. If you 
preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vul- 
gar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals 
which you brought with you from the schools must be 
considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a 
jealous and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. HABITS. 391 

do hard, if not unjust, things ; and as for the nice embar- 
rassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary 
for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must 
shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed 
your understanding with plain household truths. In short, 
you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas, or polish your 
taste, or refine your sentiments, but must keep on in one 
beaten track, without turning aside either to the right hand 
or to the left. ' But I cannot submit to drudgery like this ; 
I feel a spirit above it.' 'T is well : be above it then ; 

only do not repine that you are not rich 

" ' But is it not some reproach upon the economy of 
Providence, that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, 
should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation ? ' 
Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow 
for that very end."* 

V. (4.) Influence of Hahits on Happiness.'] The effect 
of habit in reconciling our minds to the inconveniences of 
our situation was formerly remarked, and an argument 
was drawn from it in proof of the goodness of our Crea- 
tor, who, besides making so rich a provision of objects 
suited to the principles of our nature, has thus bestowed 
on us a power of accommodation to external circum- 
stances, which these principles teach us to avoid. 

This tendency of the mind, however, to adapt itself to 
the objects with which it is familiarly conversant, may, in 
some instances, not only be a source of occasional suffer- 
ing, but may disqualify us for relishing the best enjoyments 
which human life affords. The habits contracted during 
infancy and childhood are so much more inveterate than 
those of our maturer years, that they have been justly said 
to constitute a second nature ; and if, unfortunately, they 
have been formed amidst circumstances over which we 
have no control, they leave us no security for our happi- 
ness but the caprice of fortune. To habituate the minds 
of children to those occupations and enjoyments alone, 
which it is in the power of an individual at all times to 
command, is the most solid foundation that can be laid for 
their future tranquillity. 

* Works, Vol. II. p. 21. 



392 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

Dr. Paley, with that talent for familiar and happy illus- 
tration for which he is so justly celebrated, has said : — 
" The art in which the secret of human happiness in a 
great measure consists is to set the habits in such a man- 
ner that every change may be a change for the belter. 
The habits themselves are much the same ; for whatever 
is made habitual becomes smooth and easy, and nearly in- 
different. The return to an old habit is likewise easy, 
whatever the habit be. Therefore the advantage is with 
those habits which allow of indulgence in the deviation 
from them. The luxurious receive no greater pleasure 
from their dainties than the peasant does from his bread 
and cheese ; but the peasant, whenever he goes abroad, 
finds a feast, whereas the epicure must be well entertain- 
ed to escape disgust. Those who spend every day at 
cards, and those who go every day to plough, pass their 
time much alike ; intent upon what they are about, want- 
ing nothing, regretting nothing, they are both for the time 
in a state of ease ; but then whatever suspends the occu- 
pation of the card-player distresses him, whereas to the 
laborer every interruption is a refreshment : and this ap- 
pears in the different effect that Sunday produces on the 
two, which proves a day of recreation to the one, but a 
lamentable burden to the other. The man who has learn- 
ed to live alone feels his spirits enlivened whenever he 
enters into company, and takes his leave without regret. 
Another, who has long been accustomed to a crowd, ex- 
periences in company no elevation of spirits, nor any greater 
satisfaction than what the man of a retired life finds in his 
chimney-corner. So far their conditions are equal ; but 
let a change of place, fortune, or situation separate the 
companion from his circle, his visitors, his club, common 
room, or coffee-house, and the difference of advantage in 
the choice and constitution of the two habits will show it- 
self. Solitude comes to the one clothed with melancholy ; 
to the other it brings liberty and quiet. You will see the 
one fretful and restless, at a loss how to dispose of his 
time till the hour come round that he can forget himself 
in bed ; the other easy and satisfied, taking up his book or 
his pipe as soon as he finds himself alone, ready to admit 
any little amusement that casts up, or to turn his hands 



MEANS OF HAPPINESS. HABITS. 393 

and attention to the first business that presents itself, or, 
content without either, to sit still and let his trains of 
thought glide indolently through his brain, without much 
use, perhaps, or pleasure, but without hankering after any- 
thing better, and without irritation. A reader who has 
inured himself to books of science and argumentation, if a 
novel, a well-written pamphlet, an article of news, a nar- 
rative of a curious voyage, or the journal of a traveller, 
comes in his way, sits down to the repast with relish, en- 
joys his entertainment while it lasts, and can return when 
it is over to his graver reading without distaste. Another, 
with whom nothing will go down but works of humor and 
pleasantry, or whose curiosity must be interested by per- 
petual novelty, will consume a bookseller's window in half 
a forenoon, during which time he is rather in search of di- 
version than diverted ; and as books to his taste are few 
and short, and rapidly read over, the stock is soon ex- 
hausted, when he is left without resource from this princi- 
pal supply of harmless amusement."* 

As a supplement to the remarks of Paley, I shall quote 
a short passage from Montaigne, containing an observation 
relative to the same subject, which, although stated in a 
form too unqualified, seems to me highly worthy of atten- 
tion. " We must not rivet ourselves so fast to our humors 
and complexions. Our chief business is to know how to 
apply ourselves to various customs. For a man to keep 
himself tied and bound by necessity to one only course is 
but bare existence, not living. It was an honorable char- 
acter of the elder Cato, — ' So versatile was his genius, 
that, whatever he took in hand, you would be apt to say 
that he was formed for that very thing only.' Were 1 to 
choose for myself, there is no fashion so good that I 
should care to be so wedded to it as not to have it in my 
power to disengage myself from it. Life is a motion, un- 
even, irregular, and ever varying its direction. A man is 
not his own friend, much less his own master, but rather 
a slave to himself, who is eternally pursuing his own hu- 
mor, and such a bigot to his inclinations that he is not 
able to abandon or to alter them." f 

* Moral Philosophy, Book I. Chap. vi. 
t Essays, Book III. Chap. iii. 



394 DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 

The only thing to be censured in this passage is, that 
the author makes no distinction between good and bad 
habits ; between those which we are induced to cultivate 
by reason, and by the original principles of our nature, 
and those which reason admonishes us to shun, on account 
of the mischievous consequences with which they are like- 
ly to be followed. With respect to these two classes of 
habits, considered in contrast with each other, it is ex- 
tremely worthy of observation, that the former are incom- 
parably more easy in the acquisition than the latter ; while 
the latter, when once acquired, are (probably in conse- 
quence of this very circumstance, the difficulty of over- 
coming our natural propensities) of at least equal efficacy 
in subjecting all the powers of the will to their dominion. 

Of the peculiar difficulty of shaking off such inveterate 
habits as were at first the most repugnant to our taste and 
inclinations, we have a daily and a melancholy proof in the 
case of those individuals who have suffered themselves to 
become slaves to tobacco, to opium, and to other intoxi- 
cating drugs, which, so far from possessing the attractions 
of pleasurable sensations, are in a great degree revolting to 
an unvitiated palate. The same thing is exemplified in 
many of those acquired tastes which it is the great object 
of the art of cookery to create and to gratify ; and still 
more remarkably in those fatal habits which sometimes 
steal on the most amiable characters, under the seducing 
form of social enjoyment, and of a temporary respite from 
the evils of life. 

I am inclined, however, to think that Montaigne meant 
to restrict his observations chiefly, if not solely, to habits 
which are indifferent, or nearly indifferent, in their moral 
tendency, and that all he is to be understood as asserting 
amounts to this, — that we ought not, in matters connected 
with the accommodations of human life, to enslave our- 
selves to one set of habits in preference to another. In 
this sense his doctrine is just and important.* 

* On the subject treated of in this section, see Degorando, Du Per- 
fectionncment Moral et de V Education de soi-mime. It has been translat- 
ed into English with this title : Self- Education ; or the Means and Art 
of Moral Progress. Also, Carpenter's Principles of Education, and 
Combe's Constitution of Man. — Ed. 



BOOK IV. 

OF THE NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 



CHAPTER I . 

OF THE GENERAL DEFINITION OF VIRTUE. 

Having taken a cursory survey of the chief branches 
of our duty, we are prepared to enter on the general ques- 
tion concerning the nature and essence of virtue. In fix- 
ing on the arrangement of this part of my subject, it ap- 
peared to me more agreeable to the established rules of 
philosophizing, to consider, first, our duties in detail ; and 
after having thus laid a solid foundation in the way of 
analysis, to attempt to rise to the generalidea in which all 
our duties concur, than to circumscribe our inquiries, at 
our first outset, within the limits of an arbitrary and partial 
definition. What I have now to offer, therefore, will con- 
sist of little more than some obvious and necessary conse- 
quences from principles which have been already stated. 

The various duties which have been considered all 
agree with each other in one common quality, that of be- 
ing obligatory on rational and voluntary agents ; and they 
are all enjoined by the same authority, — the authority of 
conscience. These duties, therefore, are but different 
articles of one law., which is properly expressed by the 
word virtue. 

As all the virtues are enjoined by the same authority, 
(the authority of conscience,) the man whose ruling prin- 
ciple of action is a sense of duty will observe all the dif- 
ferent virtues with the same reverence and the same zeal. 
He who lives in the habitual neglect of any one of them 
shows plainly, that, where his conduct happens to coincide 



396 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

with what the rules of morality prescribe, it is owing mere- 
ly to an accidental agreement between his duty and his in- 
clination ; and that he is not actuated by that motive which 
can alone render our conduct meritoi-ious. It is justly 
said, therefore, that to live in the habitual practice of any 
one vice is to throw off our allegiance to conscience and 
to our Maker, as decidedly as if we had violated all the 
rules which duty prescribes ; and it is in this sense, 1 pre- 
sume, that we ought to interpret that passage of the sa- 
cred writings in which it is said, " Whosoever shall keep 
the whole law, and yet oflend in one point, he is guilty 
of all."* 

The word virtue, however, (as I shall have occasion to 
remark more particularly in the next section,) is applied, 
not only to express a particular course of external con- 
duct, but to express a particular species or description of 
human character. When so applied, it seems properly 
to denote a habit of mind, as distinguished from occasional 
acts of duty. It was formerly said that tl)e characters of 
men receive their denominations of covetous, voluptuous, 
ambitious, &c., from the particular active principle which 
prevailingly influences the conduct. A man, accordingly, 
whose ruling or habitual principle of action is a sense of 
duty, or a regard to what is right, may be properly de- 
nominated virtuous. Agreeably to this view of the sub- 
ject, the ancient Pythagoreans defined virtue to be "e^ic 
Toil (5iorroc,f the habit of duty, — the oldest definition of 
virtue of which we have any account, and one of the most 
unexceptionable which is yet to be found in any system of 
philosophy. 

This account of virtue coincides very nearly with what 
I conceive to be Dr. Reid's, from some passages in his 
Essays on the Jlctive Powers of the Human Mind. Vir- 
tue he seems to consider as consisting " in a fixed pur- 
pose or resolution to act according to our sense of duty." 
" We consider the moral virtues as inherent in the mind 
of a good man, even where there is no opportunity of ex- 
ercising them. And what is it in the mind which we can 
call the virtue of justice when it is not exercised .'' It can 

* James ii. 10. t Gale's Opuscula Mytliologica, p. 690. 



DEFINITION OF VIRTUE. 397 

be noihing but a fixed purpose or determination to act ac- 
cording to the rules of justice when there is opportunity." 

With all this I perfectly agree. It is the fixed purpose 
to do what is right, which evidently constitutes what we 
call a virtuous disposition. But it appears to me that vir- 
tue, considered as an attribute of character, is more prop- 
erly defined by the habit which the fixed purpose grad- 
ually forms, than by the fixed purpose itself. It is from 
the external habit alone that other men can judge of the 
purpose ; and it is from the uniformity and spontaneity of 
his habit that the individual himself must judge how far his 
purposes are sincere and steady. 

These observations lead to an explanation of what has 
at first sight the appearance of paradox in the ethical doc- 
trines of Aristotle, that where there is self-denial there is 
no virtue. That the merit of particular actions is increas- 
ed by the self-denial with which they are accompanied 
cannot be disputed ; but it is only when we are learning 
the practice of our duties that this self-denial is exercised 
(for the practice of morality, as well as of every thing 
else, is facilitated by repeated acts) ; and therefore, if the 
word virtue be employed to express that habit of mind 
which it is the great object of a good man to confirm, it 
will follow, that, in proportion as he approaches to it, his 
efibrts of self-denial must diminish, and that all occasion 
for them would cease if his end were completely attained. 

The definition of virtue given by Aristotle, as consisting 
in "right practical habits, voluntary in their origin,'''' is 
well illustrated by what Plutarch has told us of the means 
by which he acquired the mastery over his irascible pas- 
sions. " I have always approved," says he, " of the en- 
gagements and vows imposed on themselves from motives 
of religion, by certain philosophers, to abstain from wine, 
or from some other favorite indulgence, for the space of a 
year. I have also approved of the determination taken by 
others not to deviate from the truth, even in the lightest 
conversation, during a particular period. Comparing ray 
own mind with theirs, and conscious that I yielded to none 
of them in reverence for God, I tasked myself, in the first 
instance, not to give way to anger upon any occasion for 
several days. I afterwards extended this resolution to a 
34 



398 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

month or longer ; and having thus made a trial of what I 
could do, I have learned at length never to speak but with 
gentleness, and so carefully to watch over my temper as 
never to purchase the short and unprofitable gratification 
of venting my resentment at the expense of a lasting and 
humiliating remorse."* 

I must not dismiss this topic without recommending, not 
merely to the perusal, but to the diligent stud}^, of all who 
have a taste for moral inquiries, Aristotle's J^iconiachean 
Ethics, in which he has examined, with far greater accu- 
racy than any other author of antiquity, the nature of habits 
considered in their relation to our moral constitution. The 
whole treatise is indeed of great value, and, with the ex- 
ception of a few passages, almost justifies the warm and 
unqualified eulogium pronounced upon it by a learned di- 
vine (Dr. Rennel) before the University of Cambridge ; 
in which he goes so far as to assert, that " it affords not 
only the most perfect specimen of scientific morality, but 
exhibits also the powers of the most compact and best con- 
structed system which the human intellect ever produced 
upon any subject ; enlivening occasionally great severity 
of method, and strict precision of terms, by the sublimest, 
though soberest, splendor of diction, "f 



CHAPTER II. 



ON AN AMBIGUITY IN THE WORDS RIGHT AND 
WRONG, VIRTUE AND VICE. 

The epithets right and icrong, virtuous and vicious^ 
are applied sometimes to external actions, and sometimes 
to the intentions of the agent. A similar ambiguity may 
be remarked in the corresponding words in other lan- 
guages. 

This ambiguity is owing to various causes, which it is 

* De Ira. 

t We have two English translations of this work ; one by Dr. Gillies, 
the other by Thomas Taylor. — Ed. 



ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE RIGHT. 399 

not necessary at present to trace. Among other circum- 
stances, it is owing to the association of ideas, which, as 
it leads us to connect notions of elegance or of meanness 
with many arbitrary expressions in language, so it often 
leads us to connect notions of right and wrong with ex- 
ternal actions, considered abstractly from the motives 
which produced them. It is owing (at least in part) to 
this, that a man who has been involuntarily the author of 
any calamity to another can hardly by any reasoning 
banish his feelings of remorse ; and, on the other hand, 
however wicked our purposes may have been, if by any 
accident we have been prevented from carrying them into 
execution, we are apt to consider ourselves as far less cul- 
pable than if we had perpetrated the crimes that we had 
intended. It is much in the same manner that we think it 
less criminal to mislead others by hints, or looks, or ac- 
tions, than by a verbal lie ; and, in general, that we think 
our guilt diminished if we can only contrive to accomplish 
our ends without employing those external signs, or those 
external means, with which we have been accustomed to 
associate the notions of guilt and infamy. Shakspeare 
has painted with philosophical accuracy this natural sub- 
terfuge of a vicious mind, in which the sense of duty still 
retains some authority, in one of the exquisite scenes be= 
tween King John and Hubert : — 

" Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause, 
When I spake darkly what I purposed ; 
Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face, 
As bid me tell my tale in express words ; 
Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off, 
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me. 
But thou didst understand me hy my signs. 
And didst in signs again parley loith sin." 

As this twofold application of the words right and wrong 
to the intentions of the mind, and to external actions, has 
a tendency, in the common business of life, to affect our 
opinions concerning the merits of individuals, so it has 
misled the theoretical speculations of some very eminent 
philosophers in their inquiries concerning the principles of 
morals. It was to obviate the confusion of ideas arising 
from this ambiguity of language that the distinction be- 
tween absolute and relative rectitude was introduced into 



400 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

ethics ; and as the distinction is equally just and impor- 
tant, it will be proper to explain it particularly, and to 
point out its application to one or two of the questions 
which have been perplexed by that vagueness of expres- 
sion which it is our object at present to correct. 

An action may be said to be absolutely right, when it is 
in every respect suitable to the circumstances in which the 
agent is placed ; or, in other words, when it is such as, 
with perfectly good intentions, under the guidance of an 
enlightened and well-informed understanding, he would 
have performed. 

An action may be said to be relatively right, when the 
intentions of the agent are sincerely good, whether his con- 
duct be suitable to his circumstances or not. 

According to these definitions, ah action may be right 
in one sense and wrong in another ; — an ambiguity in lan- 
guage, which, how obvious soever, has not always been 
attended to by the writers on morals. 

It is the relative rectitude of an action which determines 
the moral desert of the agent ; but it is its absolute recti- 
tude which determines its utility to his worldly interests, 
and to the welfare of society. And it is only so far as ab- 
solute and relative rectitude coincide, that utility can be 
affirmed to be a quality of virtue. 

A strong sense of duty will indeed induce us to avail 
ourselves of all the talents we possess, and of all the in- 
formation within our reach, to act agreeably to the rules of 
absolute rectitude. And if we fail in doing so, our negli- 
gence is criminal. "Crimes committed through igno- 
rance," as Aristotle has very judiciously observed, " are 
only excusable when the ignorance is involuntary ; for 
when the cause of it lies in ourselves, it is then justly 
punishable. The ignorance of those laws which all may 
know if they will does not excuse the breach of them ; 
and neglect is not pardonable where attention ought to be 
bestowed. But perhaps we are incapable of attention. 
This, however, is our own fault, since the incapacity has 
been contracted by our continual carelessness, as the 
evils of injustice and intemperance are contracted by the 
daily commission of iniquity, and the daily indulgence in 



ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE RIGHT. 401 

voluptuousness. For such as our actions are, such must 
our habits become." * ^ 

Notwithstanding, however, the truth and the importance 
of this doctrine, the general principle already stated re- 
mains incontrovertible, that in every particular instance 
our duty consists in doing what appears to us to be right at 
the time ; and if, while we follow this rule, we should in- 
cur any blame, our demerit does not arise from acting ac- 
cording to an erroneous judgment, but from our previous 
misemployment of the means we possessed for correcting 
the errors to which our judgment is liable. f 

From these principles it follows, that actions, although 
materially right, are not meritorious with respect to the 
agent, unless performed from a sense of duty. Aristotle 
inculcates this doctrine in many parts of his Ethics.\ To 
the same purpose, also. Lord Shaftesbury : — " In this 
case alone it is we call any creature worthy or virtuous^ 
when it can attain to the speculation or sense of what is 
morally good or ill, admirable or blamable, right or 
wrong. For though we may vulgarly call an ill horse 
vicious, yet we never say of a good one, nor of any mere 
changeling or idiot, though never so good-natured, that he 
is worthy or virtuous. So that if a creature be generous, 
kind, constant, and compassionate, yet if he cannot re- 
flect on what he himself does or sees others do, so as to 
take notice of what is worthy and honest, and make that 
notice or conception of worth and honesty to be an object 
of his affection, he has not the character of being virtuous, 
for thus, and no otherwise, he is capable of having a sense 
of right or wrong." § 

* Aristotle's Ethics, by Gillies, p. 305. 

t A distinction similar to that now made between absolute and rela- 
tive rectitude was expressed among the schoolmen by the phrases mate- 
rial dindi formal virtue. 

X See Ethic. Mc, Lib. IV. Cap. i.; Lib. VI. Cap. v. 

§ Inquiry concerning Virtue., Book I. Part ii. Sect iii. Dr. Price, in 
his Review., Chap. Vlll., has made a number of judicious observations 
on this subject; and Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Active Powers., has 
a particular chapter allotted to the consideration of this very question, 
" Whether an action deserving moral approbation must be done with 
the belief of its being morally good .' " in which the doctrine he en- 
deavours to establish is precisely the same with that which has been now 
stated. Compare Hume's Treatise of Human JVature, Book III. Part ii. 
Sect, i., where this conclusion is disputed. 

34* 



402 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE OFFICE AND USE OF REASON IN THE PRAC- 
TICE OF MORALITY. 

T FORMERLY obseived that a strong sense of duty, 
while it leads us to cultivate with care our good disposi- 
tions, will induce us to avail ourselves of all the means 
in our power for the wise regulation of our external con- 
duct. The occasions on which it is necessary for us to 
employ our reason in this way are chiefly the three fol- 
lowing : — 

1. When we have ground for suspecting that our moral 
judgments and feelings may have been warped and per- 
verted by the prejudices of education. 

I formerly showed that the moral faculty is an original 
principle of the human constitution, and not the result (as 
Mandeville and others suppose) of habits superinduced 
by systems of education planned by politicians and di- 
vines. The moral faculty, indeed, like the faculty of rea- 
son, (which forms the most essential of its elements,) re- 
quires care and cultivation for its development ; and, like 
reason, it has a gradual progress, both in the case of in- 
dividuals and of societies. But it does not follow from 
this that the former is a fictitious principle, any more than 
the latter, with respect to the origin of which I do not 
know that any doubts have been suggested by the greatest 
skeptics. 

Although, however, the moral faculty is an original part 
of the human frame, and although the great laws of morali- 
ty are engraven on every heart, it is not in this way that 
the greater part of mankind arrive at their first knowledge 
of them. The infant rnind is formed by the care of our 
early instructors, and for a long time thinks and acts in 
consequence of the confidence it reposes in their superior 
judgment. All this is undoubtedly agreeable to the de- 
sign of Nature ; and, indeed, if the case were otherwise, 
the business of the world could not possibly go on ; for 
nothing can be plainer than this, that the multitude, (at 



OFFICE OF REASON. 403 

least as society is actually constituted,) condemned as 
they are to laborious employments inconsistent with the 
cultivation of their mental faculties, are wholly incapable 
of forming their own opinions on the most important ques- 
tions which can occupy the human mind. It is evident, 
at the same time, that, as no system of education can be 
perfect, many prejudices must mingle with the most im- 
portant and best ascertained truths ; and as the truths and 
the prejudices are both acquired from the same source, the 
incontrovertible evidence of the one serves, in the prog- 
ress of human reason, to support and confirm the other. 
Hence the suspicious and jealous eye with which we 
ought to regard all those principles which we have at first 
adopted without due examination, — a duty doubly incum- 
bent on those whose opinions are likely, from their rank 
and situation in society, to influence those of the multi- 
tude, and whose errors may eventually be instrumental in 
impairing the morals and the happiness of generations yet 
unborn. 

2. A second instance in which the exercise of reason 
may be requisite for an enlightened discharge of our duty 
occurs in those cases where there appears to be an inter- 
ference between different duties^ and where of course it 
seems to be necessary to sacrifice one duty to another. 

In the course of the foregoing speculations, I have fre- 
quently taken notice of the coincidence of all our virtuous 
principles of action in pointing out to us the same line of 
conduct ; and of the systematical consistency and harmony 
which they have a tendency to produce in the moral char- 
acter. Notwithstanding, however, this general and indis- 
putable /acif, it must be owned that cases sometimes occur 
in which they seem at first view to interfere with each 
other, and in which, of consequence, the exact path of duty 
is not altogether so obvious as it commonly is. Thus, 
every man feels it incumbent on him to have a constant 
regard to the welfare of society^ and also to his own hap- 
piness. On the ivhole, these two interests will be found, 
by the most superficial inquirer, to be inseparably con- 
nected ; but, at the same time, it cannot be denied that 
cases may be fancied in which it seems necessary to make 
a sacrifice of the one to the other. 



404 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

In such cases, when the public happiness is very great, 
and the private comparatively inconsiderable, there is no 
room for hesitation ; but the former may be easily con- 
ceived to be diminished, and the latter to be increased, to 
such an amount as to render the exact propriety of con- 
duct very doubtful ; more especially when it is considered, 
that, cmteris paribus^ a certain degree of preference to 
ourselves is not only justifiable, but morally right. In like 
manner the attachments of nature or of friendship, or the 
obligations of gratitude, of veracity, or of justice, may in- 
terfere with private or public good ; and it may not be 
easy to say, whether all of these obligations may not some- 
times be superseded by paramount considerations o( utility. 
At least, these are points on which moralists have been 
arguing for some thousands of years, without having yet 
come to a determination in which all parties are agreed. 
It is much in the same manner that the different founda- 
tions of property may give rise to different claims ; and it 
may be exceedingly difficult to determine, among a variety 
of titles.) which of them is entitled to a preference over the 
others. 

The consideration of these nice and puzzling questions 
in the science of ethics has given rise in modern times to 
a particular department of it, distinguished by the title of 
casuistry. 

3. When the ends at which our duty prompts us to aim 
are to be accomplished by means which require choice and 
deliberation. 

Even if the whole of virtue consisted in following steadi- 
ly one principle of action, still reason would be necessary 
to direct us to the means. The truth is, nature only 
recommends certain ends, leaving to ourselves the selec- 
tion of the most efficient means by which these ends may 
be obtained. Thus all moralists, whatever may be their 
particular system, agree in this, that it is one of the chief 
branches of our duty to promote to the utmost of our 
power the happiness of that society of which we are mem- 
bers ; but the most ardent zeal for the attainment of this 
object can be of no avail, unless reason be employed both 
in ascertaining what are the real constituents of social and 
political happiness, and by what means this happiness may 
be most effectually advanced and secured. 



OFFICE OF REASON. 405 

It is owing to the last of these considerations that the 
study of happiness.) both private and public^ becomes an 
important part of the science of ethics. Indeed, without 
this study, the best dispositions of the heart, whether re- 
lating to ourselves or to others, may be in a great measure 
useless. 

The subject of happiness, so far as relates to the indi- 
vidual, has been already considered. The great extent 
and difficulty of those inquiries which have for their object 
to ascertain what constitutes the happiness of a commu- 
nity, and by what means it may be most effectually pro- 
moted, make it necessary to separate them from the other 
questions of ethics, and to form them into a distinct branch 
of the science. 

It is not, however, in this respect alone that politics is 
connected wnth the other branches of moral philosophy. 
The provisions which Nature has made for the intellectual 
and moral progress of the species all suppose the existence 
of the political union ; and the particular form which this 
union happens in the case of any community to assume, 
determines many of the most important circumstances in 
the character of the people, and many of those opinions 
and habits which affect the happiness of private life. 

These observations, which represent politics as a branch 
of moral philosophy, have been sanctioned by the opin- 
ions of all those authors, both in ancient and modern times, 
by whom either the one or the other has been cultivated 
with much success. Among the former it is sufficient to 
mention the names of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom, 
but more especially the latter, have left us works on the 
general principles of policy and government, which may 
be read with the highest advantage at the present day. As 
to Socrates, his studies seem to have been chiefly direct- 
ed to inculcate the duties of private life ; and yet, in the 
beautiful enumeration which Xenophon has given of his 
favorite pursuits, the science of politics is expressly men- 
tioned as an important branch of the philosophy of human 
nature. " As for himself, man, and what related to man, 
were the only subjects on which he chose to employ him- 
self. To this purpose, all his inquiries and conversations 
turned on what was pious, what impious ; what honorable. 



406 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

what base ; what just, what unjust ; what wisdom, what 
folly ; what courage, what cowardice ; wliat a state or po- 
litical community ; what the character of a statesman or a 
politician ; what a government of men, what the character 
of one equal to such a government. It was on these and 
other matters of the same kind that he used to discourse, 
in which subjects those who were knowing he used to es- 
teem men of honor and goodness, and those who were 
ignorant to be no better than the basest of slaves." * 



APPENDIX TO BOOK IV. 

Since the publication of Mr. Stewart's work, two theo- 
ries on the nature of virtue have appeared and attracted 
considerable notice in England and this country ; one by 
Sir James Mackintosh, and the other by JoufFroy. A 
succinct account of each will be given in this Appendix. f 

Section I. 

SIR JAMES mackintosh's THEORY OF MORALS. 

I. His Distinction betioeen the Theory of Moral Senti- 
ments and the Criterion of Morality.] INIackiniosh has, 

* Memor., Lib. I. Cap. i. 

[By reason, in this chapter, we are to uriderstand the discursive rea- 
son, or reasonincr. We have seen that Mr. Stewart, after Price, is dis- 
posed to refer the origin of moral distinctions to the intuitive reason.] 

t The first is taken from Dr. VVheweil's Preface to liis edition of 
Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy ; the 
second from JoufFroy himself, mostly from the twenty-ninth and thir- 
tieth Lectures of his Cours de Droit JVaturel, being part of the third vol- 
ume, published since his death, and not yet translated into English. 
His criticism of other theories is taken from the twenty-second Lecture. 

The object of this work does not lead me to notice German speculations 
on ethics not yet naturalized amongst us. Those who wish to pursue the 
study in that direction must read Kant, Grundlegung zur Aletaphijsik 
derSitten; and Critik der praktischen Vernunft. (IVIost of Kant's ethical 
writings have been translated into English by J. W. Semple, under the 
title of The Metaphijsic of Ethics.) Schleiermacher, Entwurf eines Sys- 
tems der Sittenlehre. Hegel, Grundliiiien der Philosophie des Rechts. 
— Ed. 



SIR JAMES mackintosh's THEORY. 407 

with great propriety, insisted upon the importance of a 
distinction of two parts of moral philosophy which are 
often confounded ; — the theory of moral sentiments^ and 
the criterion of morality. The question of the inde- 
pendent existence and character of the moral faculty be- 
longs to the former division of the subject ; the construc- 
tion of our system of ethics flows from the latter. There 
is no necessary collision between doctrines on these two 
points. We may hold that morality is an original quality 
of actions, and may still form our rules of morality by 
tracing the consequences of actions. 

This distinction has often been neglected. Those who 
hold that utility constitutes morality often call upon the 
advocates of a moral sense to show how the assertion of 
such a faculty leads us to distinguish right from wrong, or 
how it can supersede the criterion of general utility. To 
this it may be replied, that the existence of a moral 
conscience in man is an important truth, but that this truth 
alone cannot be expected to replace all the principles and 
deductions by which a sound system of philosophical ethics 
is to be produced ; that the construction of such a sys- 
tem is undoubtedly a difficult problem, but that we shall 
inevitably obtain an erroneous solution of the problem, if 
we do not take into our account the operation of the 
moral faculty. The criterion of utility cannot safely be 
applied without acknowledging the independent value of 
morality, any more than the moral faculty can always de- 
cide well without the consideration of consequences. For 
among the most important results of actions, we must in- 
clude their effect upon the moral habits and feelings of 
men ; and must consider these effects as claiming attention 
for their own sake. The promotion of human virtue must 
be our aim, as well as the augmentation of human happi- 
ness. We cannot by any analysis exclude the former of 
these ends ; happiness depends on the exercise of the vir- 
tuous affections, far more clearly than virtue depends on 
the pursuit of happiness. The most wise and moderate of 
the utilitarian moralists do, accordingly, apply their method 
in this manner. Thus Paley, in estimating the guilt of 
corrupting a person to the commission of one offence, 
states it as one ground of condemnation, that such seduction 



408 NATURE AND ESSEN'CE OF VIRTUE. 

is the destruction of the person's moral principle.* xA.nd 
it appears, at present, to be generally allowed, that the 
utilitarian doctrine cannot be applied without considering 
the effect on the moral feelings of men as among the im- 
portant consequences of action. " It often happens," it 
is said, "• that an essential part of the morality or immo- 
rality of an action, or a rule of action, consists in its in- 
fluence on the agent's own mind." " Many actions, 
moreover, produce effects on the characters of other per- 
sons besides the agents." The effects here spoken of 
are, in fact, effects on the moral habits of thought ; and 
thus the existence of the moral attributes of the mind, as 
original and independent objects of the attention of the 
ethical philosopher, is presupposed in this mode of apply- 
ing the utilitarian scheme. 

If, indeed, we take such good and bad consequences 
into the account, — if, among the useful effects of actions, 
we conceive the most useful to be the improvement of 
man's moral character, — if we frame our rules so that 
they shall conduce as much as possible to virtuous feel- 
ing as well as to beneficial action, to purity of heart as 
well as to rectitude of conduct, — if we aim at man's 
general well-being, and not merely at his gratification, — 
I know not what moralist would object to a criterion of 
morality so drawn from consequences, or would deny that 
the promotion of human happiness, and of human virtue, 
require the same practical rules. Mackintosh would un- 
doubtedly have assented to this ; for he not only allows 
the universal coincidence of virtue with utility in the largest 
sense, but founds his recommendation of the highest forms 
of virtue on the advantage of virtuous habits and feelings,* 
both to the possessor and to the community ; as when he 
speaks of the trite example of Regulus, of the character 
of Andrew Fletcher, and of the virtue of courage. f If 
we could take into due account the whole value of right 
principles, and the whole happiness produced by virtuous 
feelings, we could commit no practical error in making the 
advantageous consequences of actions the measure of their 
morality. 

* Moral Pliilosopky, Book III. Part iii. Chap. iii. 
t See the extract from him on the followers of Bentham in this 
volume. 



SIR JAMES mackintosh's THEORY. 409 

But this can happen only by considering moral good as 
a primary object, valuable for its own sake ; not by sup- 
posing that virtue is aimed at, as subservient to some other 
purpose of more genuine utility : and no sagacity or fair- 
ness in estimating useful consequences can stand as a sub- 
stitute for the love of right itself. It is true that honesty 
is the best policy ; but he who is honest only out of poli- 
cy does not come up even to the vulgar notion of a vir- 
tuous man. If a man were tempted by the opportunity of 
gaining a large estate through a safe but fraudulent pro- 
ceeding, the utilitarian doctrine would seem to recommend 
him to weigh both sides well, though it would direct him 
in conclusion to decide in favor of probity ; but the com- 
mon judgment of mankind would hardly deem him honest 
if he hesitated at all. And in like manner in regard to 
other temptations, the safety of virtue appears to consist 
so little in tracing all possible consequences, that it has 
been held that to deliberate is to be lost, and that the 
only secure protection is that purity of mind which will 
not look at the prospect of sensual pleasure when it forms 
one side of the account. We cannot help saying, with 
Cicero, " Haec nonne est turpe dubitare philosophos, quse 
ne rustici quidem dubitent ? " * 

Indeed, it appears to be acknowledged by the advocates 
of the rule of utility, that it is not safe to apply the prin- 
ciple separately in each particular case. Mr. Bentham 
has urged, with great beauty of expression,! the propriety 
of framing general rules, and conforming our practice in- 
variably to these, so as to avoid the temptations of our 
frailty and passion in particular instances. If a reverence 
for general maxims of morality, and a constant reference 
to the common precepts of virtue, take the place, in the 
utilitarian's mind, of the direct application of his princi- 
ple, there will remain little difference between him and the 
believer in original moral distinctions ; for the practical 
rules of the two will rarely differ, and in both systems the 
rules will be the moral guides of thought and conduct. 

But though the two schools agree so far, there still will 

* De Off., Lib. III. 19. " Is it not base for philosophers to doubt that 
which even peasants admit.'' " 
t Deontology, Part II. Chap. i. 
o5 



410 NATURE AND ESSEiNCE OF VIRTUE. 

be found a deficiency on the part of the consistent utilita- 
rian. A persuasion that moral good is something different 
from, and superior to, mere pleasure, is requisite to give 
to our preference of it that tone of enthusiasm and affec- 
tion which belongs to virtuous feeling. To approve a rule 
as right, is different from liking it as profitable ; to admire 
an act of virtuous self-devotion as we are capable of ad- 
miring, is a feeling so different from the apprehension of 
any usefulness the act may have, that the comparison of 
the two things is altogether incongruous. The moral fac- 
ulty converts our perception of the quality of actions into 
an affection of the strongest kind ; nor can we be satisfied 
with any account of our moral sentiments which excludes 
this feature in the process. Thus, as we hold the affec- 
tions to be motives of an order superior to the desires 
which have reference to ourselves only, we maintain the 
moral faculty, the conscience, the affection towards duty, 
to be a principle of action of an order superior both to 
the desires and to the other affections. Without the ac- 
knowledgment of this subordination, the language and feel- 
ings of men \vhen they compare the claims of personal 
pleasure, of social affection, and of duty, are altogether 
unintelligible and absurd. 

II. He refers the Formation of our Active Principles to 
the Association of Meas.] I proceed to notice another 
principle which enters into Mackintosh's philosophy, and 
which, in the way in which he holds it, constitutes one of 
his leading peculiarities. He assents, in a great measure, 
to the explanation suggested by Hume and Smith, but 
more fully developed by Hartley, of the formation of our 
2iassions and affections., and even of our sentiments of vir- 
tue and duty.) by means of the association of ideas. 

1. But into this view, as usually understood, he intro- 
duces several modifications ; and, in particular, he asserts 
that the effect of such " association " may be something 
very different from the mere juxtaposition of the component 
elements. Thus he says that the result may be so entire- 
ly a single sentiment, that " the originally separate feelings 
can no longer be disjoined"; and, moreover, that "the 
compound may have properties not to be found in any of 



SIR JAMES mackintosh's THEORY. 411 

its component parts "; as constantly happens, he observes, 
in material compounds. 

It is clear that this view of the effect of the " associa- 
tion of ideas " may give results very different from those 
often founded upon that doctrine. If we say that grati- 
tude, or compassion, or patriotism, are only certain trains 
of pleasurable associations, we are generally understood 
to assert that w^e can again resolve those feelings into the 
constituent and associated elements ; and that by so doing 
we may hope to reason upon them most philosophically 
and exactly. But Mackintosh's mode of considering these 
and other emotions would allow of neither of these infer- 
ences. He supposes " association " to be employed in 
the education rather than in the creation of our moral sen- 
timents ; in awakening affections rather than in connecting 
notions. 

2. The ideas or the feelings which are concerned in this 
process are said to be associated ; but this is, he de- 
clares, a very inadequate word to express the "complete 
combination and fusion " which occur. This association 
presupposes laws and powers of the mind itself, according 
to which the conjunction produces its results. The cele- 
brated comparison of the mind to a sheet of whhe paper is 
not just, except we consider that there may be in the 
paper itself many circumstances which affect the nature of 
the writing. A recent writer, however, appears to me 
to have supplied us with a much more apt and beautiful 
comparison. Man's soul at first, says Professor Sedg- 
wick, is one unvaried blank, till it has received the in)- 
pressions of external experience. " Yet has this blank," 
he adds, " been already touched by a celestial hand ; and, 
when plunged in the colors which surround it, it takes not 
its tinge from accident, but design, and comes out covered 
with a glorious pattern." * This modern image of the 
mind as a prepared blank is well adapted to occupy a 
permanent place in opposition to the ancient sheet of white 
paper. 

3. Not only the word association^ but also the word 
ideas, in the Lockian expression, appears to Mackintosh 

* Discourse on the Studies of the Vniversity, p. 54. 



412 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

to be unsuited to its purpose, since an association takes 
place " of thoughts with emotions, as well as with each 
other." Our author has indeed shown great solicitude to 
bring into clear view that part of our nature which he here 
distinguishes from thought ; — " that other part of it, 
hitherto without any adequate name, which feels, and de- 
sires, and loves, and hopes, and wills." After balancing 
the various terms which may be used to express the aggre- 
gate of such feelings, he inclines finally to call it the emo- 
tive part of man. 

Thus the " association of ideas," according to INfackin- 
tosh, would more properly be termed the composition of 
ideas and emotions. In his view of the composite, as 
losing all trace of apparent composition, the author was, 
in some measure, following Hartley, though he justly 
claims the credit of seeing more distinctly than his prede- 
cessors the important truth, that the compound may have 
properties not found in any of its component parts. 

4. Mackintosh maintains that this is by no means a modi- 
fication of the selfish system ; for the " affections and the 
moral sentiments, though educed by association, only be- 
come what they are when they lose all trace of self-regard." 
" If the affections be acquired, they are justly called natu- 
ral ; and if their origin be personal, their nature may and 
does become disinterested.''' 

III. His Theory oj Conscience.'] But we must now 
consider another peculiarity of Mackintosh's system : I 
speak of what he names his theory of conscience. 

1. The agreeable or painful sentiment, naturally attend- 
ing certain emotions, is transferred, by association of ideas, 
to the volitions and acts which they produce ; and thus, 
in the end, these volitions and acts become the immediate 
objects of our love or repugnance. According to Mackin- 
tosh's theory, the moral faculty consists of this class of sec- 
ondary desires and affections which have dispositions and 
volitions for their sole object. This description of our 
moral sentiments will, he conceives, explain their peculiar 
character and attributes. He expresses the relation which 
he wishes to describe, by saying that the moral sentiments 
are in contact icith the icill ; or, as he further elucidates 



SIR JAMES MACKIiNTOSH's THEORY. 413 

this, " they may and do stand between any other practical 
principle and its object, while it is absolutely innpossible 
that any other shall intercept their connection with the 
will." The conscience requires virtuous acts and dispo- 
sitions to action ; and by such requisition it can check and 
control any desires of external objects ; but no desire of 
any outward gratification can prevent the conscience from 
demanding a virtuous direction of the will ; and this men- 
tal relation explains and justifies, Mackintosh conceives, 
that attribution of supremacy and command to the con- 
science on which moral writers have often insisted.* 



* In his remarks on Bntler he says: — " The truth seems to be, that 
the moral sentiments, in their mature state, are a class of feelings which 
have no other object but the mental dispositions leading to voluntary action, 
and the voluntary actions ichich flow from these dispositions. We are 
pleased with some dispositions and actions, and displeased with others, 
in ourselves and our fellows. We desire to cultivate the dispositions, 
and to perform the actions, which we contemplate with satisfaction. 
These objects, like all those of human appetite or desire, are sought for 
their own sake. The peculiarity of these desires is, that their gratifica- 
tion requires the use of no means. Notliing (unless it be a volition) is in- 
terposed between the desire and the voluntary act. It is impossible, 
therefore, that these passions should undergo any change by transfer 
from the end to the means, as is the case with other practical principles. 
On the other hand, as soon as they are fixed on these ends, they cannot 
regard any further object. When another passion prevails over them, the 
end of the moral faculty is converted into a means of gratification. But 
volitions and actions are not themselves the end, or last object in view, 
of any other desire or aversion. Nothing stands between the moral 
sentiments and their object. They are, as it were, in contact with the 
will. It is this sort of mental position, if the expression may be par- 
doned, that explains, or seems to explain, those characteristic properties 
which true philosophers ascribe to them, and which all reflecting men 
feel to belong to them. Being the only desires, aversions, sentiments, 
or emotions which regard dispositions and actions, they necessarily ex- 
tend to the whole character and conduct. Among motives to action, they 
alone are justly considered as universal. They may and do stand be- 
tween any other practical principle and its object ; while it is absolutely 
impossible that another shall intercept their connection with the will. 
Be it observed, that, though many passions prevail over them, no other 
can act beyond its own appointed and limited sphere ; and that the 
prevalence itself, leaving the natural order undisturbed in any other part 
of the mind, is perceived to be a disorder, when seen in another man, 
and felt to be so by the mind disordered, when the disorder subsides. 
Conscience may forbid the will to contribute to the gratification of a de- 
sire. No desire ever forbids will to obey conscience. 

"This result of the peculiar relation of conscience to the will justifies 
those metaphorical expressions which ascribe to it authority and the 
right oi universal command. It is immutable; for, by the law which 
regulates all feelings, it must rest on action, which is its object, and be- 

35* 



414 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

2. Thus conscience consists in, or rather results from, 
the composition oi all those sentiments, of which the 6nal 
object is a state of the will, intimately and inseparably 
blended, and held in a perfect state of solution ; and the 
conscience being thus represented as analogous to the de- 
sires, it implies, in the same way as other desires, a sense 
of what is grateful, and a faculty of dwelling, in thought, 
on the gratification so obtained. 

3. But if, in order further to develop this theory, it be 
asked what states of the will are tlius agreeable to the con- 

yond which it cannot look; and as it emp\oys no means, it never can be 
transferred to nearer objects, in the way in which he who first desires 
an object, as a means of gratification, may come to seek it as his end. 
Another remarkable peculiarity is bestowed on the moral feelings by 
the nature of their object. As the objects of all other desires are out- 
ward, the satisfaction of them may be frustrated by outward causes. 
The moral sentiments may always be gratified, because voluntary ac- 
tions and moral dispositions spring from within. IVo external circum- 
stance afi^ects them. Hence tiieir independence. As the moral senti- 
ment needs no means, and tlie desire is instantaneously followed by the 
volition, it seems to be either tiiat which first suggests the relation be- 
tween command and obedience, or at least that which affords the simplest 
instance of it. Il is therefore with the most rigorous precision that au- 
tiiority and universality are ascribed to them. Their only unfortunate 
property is their too frequent weakness ; but it is apparent that it is 
from that circumstance alone that their failure arises. Thus considered, 
the language of Butler concerning conscience, that, "had it strength as 
it has right, it would govern the world," which may seem to be only 
an effusion of generous feeling, proves to be a just statement of the 
nature and action of the highest of htiman faculties. The union of 
universality, immutability, and independence with direct action on 
tlie will, which distinguishes the moral sense from every other part 
of our practical nature, renders it scarcely metaphorical language to 
ascribe to it unbounded sovereignty and awful authority over the whole 
of the world within, — shows that attributes, well denoted by terms 
significant of command and control, are, in fact, inseparable from it, 
or rather constitute its very essence, — justifies those ancient moralists 
who represent it as alone securing, if not forming, the moral liberty 
of man ; and finally, when religion rises from its roots in virtuous feel- 
ing, it clothes conscience with the sublime character of representing 
tile Divine purity and majesty in the human soul. Its title is not im- 
paired by any number of defeats; for every defeat necessarily disposes 
the disinterested and dispassionate by-stander to wish that its force were 
strengthened : and though it may be doubted whether, consistently 
with the present constitution of human nature, it could be so invigo- 
rated as to be the only motive to action, yet every such by-stander 
rejoices at all accessions to its force, and would own that man be- 
comes happier, more excellent, more estimable, more venerable, in 
proportion as conscience acquires a power of banisliing malevolent 
passions, of strongly curbing all the private ap])etites, of influencing 
and guiding the benevolent affections themselves." 



SIR JAMES mackintosh's theouy. 415 

science, or, in other words, what, according to this sys- 
tem, is the general character of the dispositions and ac- 
tions which we consider good and right, Mackintosh's 
answer would be, that the conscience, being educated 
and awakened by certain processes of association, is thus 
composed of various elements, and finds good under vari- 
ous forms ; — that the beneficial volitions are delightful, 
and that, therefore, they strongly attract those affections 
which regard the will, and thus give rise to some of the 
elements of conscience ; * — that our anger against those 
who disappoint our wish for the happiness of others, when 
in like manner detached from persons and transferred to 
dispositions, becomes a sense of justice, another element 
of conscience ; — that courage, energy, decision, when 

* To illustrate this more fully, we cite what he says in his " General 
Remarks " : — " When the social affections are thus formed, they are 
naturally followed in every instance by the will to do whatever can 
promote their object. Compassion excites a voluntary determination 
to do whatever relieves the person pitied. The like process must 
occur in every case of gratitude, generosity, and affection. Nothing 
so uniformly follows the kind disposition as the act of will, because 
it is the only means by which the benevolent desire can be gratified. 
Tiie result of what Brown justly calls 'a finer analysis' shows the 
mental contiguity of the affection to the volition to be much closer 
than appears on a coarser examination of this part of our nature. No 
wonder, then, that the strongest association, the most active power of 
reciprocal suggestion, should subsist between them. As all the affec- 
tions are delightful, so the volitions, voluntary acts which are the only 
means of their gratification, become agreeable objects of contemplation 
to the mind. The habitual disposition to perform them is felt in our- 
selves, and observed in others, with satisfaction. As these feelings be- 
come more livel}', the absence of them may be viewed in ourselves 
with a pain, in others with an alienation capable of indefinite increase. 
They become entirely independent sentiments ; still, however, receiving 
constant supplies of nourishment from their parent affections, which, in 
well-balanced minds, reciprocally strengthen each other; unlike the 
unkind passions, which are constantly engaged in the most angry con- 
flicts of civil war. In this state, we desire to experience these benefi- 
cent volitions, to cultivate a disposition towards them, and to do every 
correspondent voluntary act. They are for their own sake the objects 
of desire. They thus constitute a large portion of those emotions, 
desires, and affections, which regard certain dispositions of the mind 
and determinations of the will as their sole and ultimate end. These 
are what are called the moral sense, the moral sentiments, or best, 
though most simply, by the ancient name of Conscience ; which has the 
merit, in our language, of being applied to no other purpose, which pe- 
culiarly marks the strong working of these feelings on conduct, and 
which, from its solemn and sacred character, is well adapted to denote 
the venerable authority of the highest principle of human nature." 



416 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

tamed by the society of the affections, and considered as 
dispositions only, become magnanimity, and gratify the 
moral sense ; — and that even those habits which mainly 
affect our own good, as temperance, prudence, when they 
become disposition and not calculation, are, for like rea- 
sons, added to the constituents of conscience. 

4. Thus the view of the nature of conscience here pre- 
sented explains how it is that the private desires and the 
social affections alike fall under the authority of the moral 
faculty. The explanation of this community of rule in 
sentiments of so widely different nature. Mackintosh con- 
siders a strong confirmation of the justice of his opinion. 

IV. Inferences deduced from this Theory.'] Without 
pronouncing a judgment on the truth of this theory, I hope 
I have faithfully represented the author's meaning. But 
he draws from the theory certain inferences, of which I 
may say a few words. 

1. Mackintosh, as we have seen, maintains that, though 
the moral faculty is formed or educed by intercourse with 
the external world, it is a law of our nature ; yet he allows 
that what this law prescribes agrees with the rule, rightly 
understood, of bringing forth the greatest happiness. He 
was, therefore, naturally called upon to account for this 
coincidence. If moral approval be a different sentiment 
from the estimation of general happiness, why does the 
moral sense of man invariably approve that which increases 
the happiness of his species .'' If this theory account for 
this phenomenon, such a circumstance will, he conceives, 
be a strong argument in its favor. 

He replies to this inquiry, that all the separate objects 
which conscience approves, the social affections, the de- 
cisions of justice, the maxims of enlightened prudence, 
tend to the happiness of some part of the species, and that 
thus the general rules of conscience must agree with the 
rules of the general happiness. All the acts which the 
moral faculty sanctions promote the welfare of some part 
of mankind, and all that reason has to do is to add up the 
items of the account. All the principles of which con- 
science is composed converge towards the happiness of 
man ; and therefore this may be taken as its central point. 



SIR JAMES mackintosh's THEORY. 417 

And thus ihe coincidence just noticed is not accidental, 
but is a necessary consequence of the theory. 

I will add, as a corollary to what Mackintosh has 
said, that a system of ethics, rightly constructed on the 
principle of promoting, in the greatest degree, the happi- 
ness of mankind, will coincide, in most of its rules of ac- 
tion, with a system founded on the supreme authority of 
conscience ; but that, in order to apply safely and well 
the eudemonist principle, we must recollect that happiness 
consists rather in habits of the mind than in outward grati- 
fications, and is to be sought rather by forming moral 
dispositions than by prescribing acts. In Paley's Moral 
Philosophy, we have a work framed on the eudemonist 
basis, which has for some time possessed considerable 
authority in this country, and has probably in no small 
degree influenced men's reasonings on such subjects in 
recent times. Without examining here how far Paley 
has always applied his principle under due conditions, and 
traced his consequences with a sufficiently enlarged survey, 
we may observe that there prevails through the work a 
tone of practical sagacity, good sense, and good feeling, 
which neutralizes most of its theoretical defects. 

2. Some other bearings of Mackintosh's theory may be 
noticed, and especially the view it offers of the relation of 
religion and morality. This agrees nearly with the doc- 
trine of Butler, and many English divines, that conscience 
is one of the ways in which the commands of God are 
conveyed to us. " The completeness and rigor acquired 
by conscience, when all its dictates are revered as the 
commands of a perfectly good and wise Being, are so ob- 
vious, that they cannot be questioned by any reasonable 
man, however wide his incredulity may be. It is thus 
that conscience can add the warmth of an affection to the 
inflexibility of principle and habit." Not only are we 
bound to accept all the precepts for the moral government 
of the will, disclosed either by revelation or by reason, 
as undeniable rules for our feelings and actions ; but the 
relations between man and his Maker, which religion 
teaches us, tend to make this a work of love, no less than 
of duty, and bestow on that improvement of our inward 
nature to which conscience is constantly urging us an as- 



418 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

pect of hope and joy, which human morality, without such 
aid, can hardly assume, and seldom long retain. 

3. I will only refer to one other consequence of this theory 
of conscience of Mackintosh ; — the view it appears to him 
to supply of the celebrated question of free-will. Since 
conscience contemplates those dispositions only v.-'hich de- 
pend on the will, it excludes all consideration of the cause 
in which the will originated : hence the voluntary dispo- 
sitions appear as the first link of the chain ; and, in the 
eye of conscience, will is the independent cause of action. 
Reason, on the other hand, must consider occurrences as 
bound together by the connection of cause and effect, and 
thus sees only the strength of the necessitarian system. 
Thus, while speculation appears to show that our actions 
are necessary, practice convinces us that they are free. 
The advocates of necessity and of free-will look at the 
question from different points of view -5 — that of the un- 
derstanding and that of the conscience. But the conscien- 
tious view, being strengthened by the moral sympathy of 
mankind, is by far the most generally and strongly enter- 
tained. 

Section II. 

jouffroy's theory of morals. 

I. His Criticism of other Theories.'] Observation attests, 
and reason conceives, that every human action must have a 
motive and an end. In seeking to determine what are the 
distinct ends of human action, we find that they may be 
reduced to three : first, the peculiar object of some one 
natural desire ; secondly, the complete satisfaction of our 
whole nature, or the pleasure which accompanies this sat- 
isfaction ; thirdly, that which is good in itself. We find, 
also, that all the distinct motives of human action may be 
reduced to three, which correspond to these three ends : 
first, some natural instinct ; secondly, a desire of secon- 
dary formation, which we call self-love, or the desire of 
happiness ; thirdly, obligation. From these arise three 
sim[)le forms of volition, not to speak of those mixed 
forms which result from the different possible combinations 
of these three ends and motives. 



jouffroy's theory. 419 

This being premised, we apply the name of good to 
the following things : — 

1 . The objects of the different instincts of our nature, — 
such as food, riches, power, glory, esteem, friendship, — 
each of which we call good. Good^ in this first accepta- 
tion, signifies whatever is fitted to satisfy some desire ; so 
that there are as many varieties of good as there are de- 
sires. 

2. The greatest satisfaction of our nature ; which is, 
in other words, either its greatest good or its greatest hap- 
piness, according as we consider its satisfaction in itself, 
or the consequence of this, which is pleasure. Here, the 
word good represents no longer the object of a desire and 
its satisfaction, but the greatest satisfaction of all our de- 
sires. Different persons may understand this good in 
their own way, but each has the idea of such a good. 

3. Good in itself. By good, in this last acceptation, we 
mean, not that which is good in reference to ourselves, but 
that which is good independently of ourselves and of every 
human being, — good in itself, and absolutely. There 
can be but one such good as this, although there may be 
as many kinds of good of the second class as there are 
beings, and as many of the first as there are desires in in- 
dividuals. 

4. The conformity of the voluntary action of a free 
and intelligent being to absolute good. The word good, 
in this last acceptation, represents that quality of the con- 
duct of intelligent and free individuals which makes it 
conformable to absolute good. This is virtue, morality, 
moral good. 

Such are the facts, at least as they appear to me. 
Ethical systems become false by misconceiving or mutilat- 
ing these facts more or less. The system that mutilates 
them the most is the selfish system ; for it entirely effaces 
the distinctions just pointed out, and reduces all these facts 
to one, — a voluntary and determined pursuit of personal 
good. The instinctive system is less at variance with the 
truth. It recognizes two ends and two motives, — the end 
and motive of instinct, and the end and motive of self- 
love ; — but, in all else, it misconceives the reality. The 
system maintained by Price and Stewart comes much 



420 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

nearer to the truth. This recognizes three motives and 
three ends ; but it gives a false description of the third, 
and ahers its nature by overlooking the distinction between 
absolute good and moral good. It confounds these two 
facts, which, though united, are distinct, and forms of 
them a single fact, that retains the qualities of neither the 
one nor the other exclusively, and thus, by blending them, 
mutilates both. 

According to Price and Stewart, the idea of good is 
only an idea of a quality in actions recognized by intuitive 
reason ; so that, beyond actions, there is nothing that is 
good, and, if there were no actions, good would cease 
to be. 

In my opinion, this is true only of moral good. I grant 
that the idea of moral good is the idea of a certain quali- 
ty in actions, — a quality which really exists in them, and 
which my reason discovers. If there were no actions, 
this quality, and consequently moral good, would have no 
existence. The idea alone would exist, and this would 
be the idea of a possible quality of possible actions. But, 
in my opinion, moral good, or this particular quality, is not 
an intrinsic attribute of certain actions, as a round form 
is of certain bodies. It is, on the contrary, a relation 
existing between actions and an end, namely, absolute 
good ; these actions may or may not tend to this end, by 
relation to which they are good when they tend towards it, 
and bad when they do not. This end is good in itself ; 
it is the only absolute good, and whatever else is good de- 
rives this character merely from being related to it. This 
end is the reality which the word good represents ; the 
idea of it is perfectly equivalent to the idea of good, and, 
in fact, these two ideas are identical. 

In what way, according to my view, is good perceived ? 
The process is as follows : As good and evil, in conduct 
and actions, depend upon their conformity, or their non- 
conformity, to absolute good, it is evident that, for me, 
they have no such character, unless I have attained to the 
idea of this absolute good. It is on the occasion of actions, 
to be sure, that this idea of good is conceived, and the 
conception may be more or less clear in my mind ; but, 
clear or obscure, this idea must still precede any judgment 



jouffroy's theory. 421 

as to particLilar actions. Thus, in my system, moral con- 
ceptions must necessarily originate in the idea of good in 
itself. 

II. His Account of the Origin of our Ideas of Absolute 
Good and of Moral Obligation.'l The solution of the 
moral problem is found in certain self-evident truths, 
conceived a priori by the reason, the immediate conse- 
quence of which is a clear definition of good, and this 
supplies us with a precise method for determining in what 
it consists for every possible being. What the truths are, 
and how they lead to this double consequence, I am going 
briefly to indicate. 

The first of these truths is the principle, that every 
being has an end ; it has all the evidence, all the universali- 
ty, all the necessity, of the principle of causality, and our 
reason is as unable to conceive of an exception to one as 
to the other. It has, also, the fecundity ; for, having pen- 
etrated into our intelligence, it gives birth to other truths 
contained impliedly in it, and these cast on the end of 
things the same light which the truths emanating from the 
principle of causality cast on their origin. 

Indeed, if it is true that every being has an end, then 
it is true that I have one, that you iiave one, that there is 
no created being which has not one. Now in casting our 
eyes over the world, or over that part of it with which we 
are acquainted, we perceive that if all beings have an 
end, this end is not uniform for all ; for, as far as our ob- 
servation extends, each class of beings develops itself in 
its own way, and aspires to an end peculiar to itself. As 
soon, therefore, as we have conceived that every being has 
an end, we gather from experience another truth, namely, 
that this end differs in different beings, each being having 
an end peculiar to itself. 

And this second discovery is not slow to introduce a 
third, namely, that a relation exists between the end of 
each being and its nature, the diversity or peculiarity in the 
end corresponding to the diversity or peculiarity in the 
nature. Clearly, if each being has its appropriate end, it 
must have received an organization adapted to this end, 
and apt to attain it. It would be a contradiction to sup- 
36 



422 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

pose an end to be imposed on a being whose nature did 
not contain the means of realizing it. Experience teaches 
us that no such contradiction exists in creation ; it shows 
us everywhere the nature of beings in harmony with their 
destination, and a perfect parallelism between diversity of 
natures and that of ends ; so that this third truth, that the 
end of each being is conformed to its nature, is invested 
in our intelligence with the same guaranties of universality 
as the other two. 

By its light you perceive the method for determining 
what the true end of any being is. Though the end of 
beings is a pure conception, invisible to the observer, their 
nature is a reality which we can analyze and investigate ; 
and, as the nature of every being is adapted to its end, we 
can find in the first a revelation of the second. There is, 
then, a way for discovering the destiny of beings, — name- 
ly, by the study of their nature ; whenever the latter is pos- 
sible, the former can be determined. 

To these truths are soon added two others, which equal, 
in evidence and reach, the first. If each being has its end, 
then creation itself, which embraces all beings, has one. 
Creation, it is true, cannot be comprehended by us in its 
totality ; we can take in only a fragment of it, and this 
fragment we know in a moment only of its duration. The 
work of God fills space and duration, while all that we 
can directly seize pertains to but a point in one, and a 
moment in the other. Still, though infinite, and to endure 
for ever, the same principle applies to it, assuring our 
reason invincibly that it has an end. 

Moreover, this truth is revealed to us in connection 
with the preceding truths, and all together generate still 
another. If creation has an end, if each being has its 
own end, and if creation is nothing but the assemblage of 
all beings, it follows that the relation which exists between 
the whole and its parts must also exist between the end 
of the whole and the end of each of the parts of the 
whole. The end of each being is, therefore, an element 
of the end of creation. The end of creation is only the 
resultant of the particular ends of all the beings that people 
and compose the universe, while these, in their turn, are 
only the diverse means which concur in the accomplish- 



jouffroy's theory. 423 

ment of the total and supreme end. This last conception 
is not less evident or less necessary than the rest, flowing, 
like them, from the absolute principle that every thing has 
an end. By an invincible relation, it attributes the end of 
all possible beings to a consequence of the creation, and 
forms out of all these scattered ends an harmonious whole, 
the concurrence of which aspires to a single aim, — that, 
even, which God proposed to himself, when he allowed the 
universe to escape from his hands. 

This is not all. Other ideas and truths issue from this 
principle, that all has an end. The next which I shall 
signalize is the idea of order. The idea of -order is, 
indeed, but an emanation, a natural and inevitable con- 
sequence of the idea of an end. If creation has an end, 
and if this end is nothing but the resultant of the particu- 
lar ends of the beings which compose it, then the life of 
creation is nothing else but its movement towards this su- 
preme end, and the movement itself, in its turn, may be 
resolved into the several movements of all created beings 
towards their respective ends. From the accomplishment 
of all particular ends — accomplishment which is effected 
simultaneously in all points of space, and successively in 
all moments of duration, by the harmonious concurrence 
of all beings, executing, each in its sphere and at its hour, 
the part with which it has been charged — results evidently 
the universal life, or the accomplishment of the total end 
of creation. Now this universal and eternal movement of 
each thing towards the end which God has assigned to it, 
and of all things towards the supreme, single , and definitive 
end of creation, — this movement, evidently regular, since 
it has an aim, is precisely what we call order. The only 
difference between the end of creation and universal order 
is, that the end is the aim, while the order is the regular 
movement of all in accordance with this aim. 

Thus far nothing has been said of morality. The con- 
ceptions just announced to you are only speculative truths, 
which reveal to our reason what is, without teaching it 
what ought to be done. Such, however, is their nature, 
that, when they have appeared in our intelligence, the idea 
of what is good, and consequently of what ought to be 
done, necessarily follows. It is impossible for our reason 



424 NATURE ANI> ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

not to pass from this idea of an end to the idea of good 
in itself, and from the idea of order to that of moral good. 
If there exist in the world intelligent and free beings, 
these beings resemble all others in having an end which 
has been assigned them, and a nature fitted to that end ; 
in other terms, like all other beings, they are fragments 
of creation, and their end is an element of the absolute 
end of things. At the same time, they differ from other 
creatures, by being endowed with intelligence and liberty ; 
— a difference which produces in them special and peculiar 
phenomena. Being intelligent, it is given them to com- 
prehend this world of which they make part ; to conceive 
that it has an end, that all beings have one, and that the 
end of each being is an element of the end of all. Being 
free, it is also given them to realize voluntarily this end, 
of which they have formed a conception, and thus to 
concur in the accomplishment of the absolute end of things, 
and contribute their part to the absolute order, that is to 
say, to the universal movement of all things towards an 
end. Nov/ that wbich has been given to these privileged 
beings to do, — to these beings endowed by exception with 
intelligence and liberty, — is precisely what they ought, 
what they are required, what they are obliged, to do. 

To the eye of reason there is a perfect, absolute, ne- 
cessary equation between the idea of end and the idea of 
good. If it is true that the w^orld has an end, it is equally 
so that this end is absolute good. If it is true that each 
being has a special end, then it is true that the good proper 
to this being is this end. Again, if it is true that between 
the end of each being and the end of all there is a corre- 
lation, so that the end of each being is only an element of 
the end of all, then it is true that the good of each being 
is an element of absolute good, and that thus the end of 
each being has the same nature and the same value as 
absolute good itself. Now to what is the idea of qb- 
ligation invincibly attached ? To the idea of that which 
is good in itself and absolutely. What we were ignorant 
of we now know ; we have a clear conception of it. 
Good in itself is no other thing than the end of God in 
creation, than the absolute end of things. Henceforth, 
this end appears to us as sacred, and with it all the diverse 



JOUFFROY S THEORY. 425 

ends which are the elements of it, and among these our 
own, which is one of them. The accomphshment of our 
end, or of our good, with which we are charged by being 
made free and intelligent, and that of the end or the good 
of others in so far as we are able to concur in it, — behold 
our duty, our rule, our legitimate law. Here, gentlemen, 
is morality ; we sought it ; behold it found. 

I pretend not to say, that all these conceptions, which 
constitute logically the foundations of morality, are dis- 
tinctly unfolded to all minds. Far from it. All a priori 
conceptions, though absolute and universal in themselves, 
reveal themselves and manifest their authority and force, in 
the first instance, in particular applications. Afterwards, 
what is universal and absolute in these particular applica- 
tions is disengaged for some minds, and considered and 
understood by itself in the form of necessary and absolute 
conceptions ; for others it is not. A majority do but take 
the first step ; they pronounce a particular course of con- 
duct to be according to their nature ; that is to say, in 
conformity with their end ; that is to say, again, what they 
were made for. What is common to all minds is the habit 
of thus applying these conceptions in particular cases, and 
this supposes that there is something which they all feel in 
common. This something is a confused idea, a confused 
sentiment of order, and of the respect which every rea- 
sonable being should pay to it. The proper and true 
name of moral good and evil is order and disorder. When 
I do evil, I feel myself at war with order. The least devel- 
oped, the most darkened consciences, have this sentiment, 
as well as the most enlightened. When I do evil, I feel 
myself out of order, in hostility with order ; when I do 
good, I feel myself in harmony with order ; that is to say, 
in harmony with the absolute and common law of creation. 
I am " in the ways of God," as the Scriptures say ; for 
the ways of God are his designs, the laws that govern the 
universe and lead it to its end. 

III. His View of the Destiny of Man.'] According 
to a preceding formula, we are to determine what a man's 
destiny is by the study of his nature ; what he was made 
for, by considering how he is made. Now by observation 



426 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

we discover that there are in man instincts, tendencies, 
desires, by which his nature expresses itself and reveals 
itself primitively, and as long as it lives in this world. 
He also has faculties, that is, instruments, answering to his 
desires and tendencies, and evidently intended to be the 
means of satisfying these desires and tendencies. Again, 
he possesses a faculty of comprehension, the function of 
which is to enlighten him respecting the objects of his de- 
sires, and also on the best way of proceeding in order 
to satisfy these desires. Finally, there is in him a direc- 
tive force, called the will, or the power of self-control, 
whose office it is, under the superior authority of reason 
and intelligence, or the comprehending faculty, to direct 
his instrumental faculties in the best manner for the attain- 
ment of the satisfaction of his nature. ' 

Such being the constitution of human nature, we see 
that every thing looks to the legitimate, harmonious, and 
complete satisfaction of our whole nature ; that is to say, 
of all its primary and fundamental desires and tendencies. 
This, therefore, speaking absolutely, is its destiny, its 
end. 

Here, however, we encounter a fact of great moment. 
Our condition in this world is such, that not one of the de- 
sires and tendencies of our nature is ever completely sat- 
isfied on earth, either in the individual, or in the race con- 
sidered collectively. Take curiosity, for example, or the 
desire or tendency to know, — its complete satisfaction 
would be absolute knowledge ; or sympathy, — its com- 
plete satisfaction would be the perfect union and harmony 
of all beings : neither of which is ever realized in this 
world. Let no one object that a different and more per- 
fect organization of society might bring about these results. 
Undoubtedly a different and more perfect organization of 
society would augment the sum of the satisfactions of each 
and of all the desires and tendencies of our nature ; still, 
absolute knowledge and a perfect and harmonious union 
of all beings in this world would be impossible. 

From this incontestable fact, two conclusions of the 
highest importance follow. 

In the first place, it follows that the absolute end of 
many as determined by his nature, is never realized in this 



I jouffroy's theory. 427 

world, and consequently, that he is not placed here for the 
accomplishment of this end. 

The question respecting the end of man comes up, there- 
fore, in another form. What is the end of man in this life ? 
Why is he placed amidst a constitution of things where 
the free and spontaneous development of his desires and 
tendencies is obstructed and hindered, — where nature 
around him is not in harmony with his own nature, mak- 
ing his existence here a perpetual struggle, a perpetual 
conflict ? Here, again, we must determine the end by 
considering the tendency, and accordingly we ask, What 
is the tendency of this constitution of things, as regards 
man .'' Evidently it is, to call out, exercise, and strength- 
en his self-directing, self-controlling power, his personal 
power, that which makes him to be a person, and not a 
thing, — capable of virtue, capable of cooperating with 
God. Suppose we had been placed in a condition in 
which nothing opposed or obstructed the accomplishment 
of our true end : we should have gone to that end pas- 
sively, if I may use such a term in speaking of an active 
being. We should have been like the main-spring of a 
watch, which, after having been wound up by the hand of 
its owner, goes on gradually unwinding itself, marking the 
hours until night ; but the main-spring has no proper par- 
ticipation in the effect produced. Whence comes it that 
we elevate ourselves from the humble condition of a being 
which is only a thing to the sublime condition of a person ? 
It comes from this, that the world is made as it is ; from 
the rigorous law, under which we are born, that we make 
not a single step towards the accomphshment of our final 
destiny but by the sweat of our brow. 

The present life, therefore, with all its difficulties and 
obstacles, with all its physical and moral evils, is not a 
mistake or an accident. It has not only been explained, 
but justified ; but the justification brings into view a second 
consequence, equally important, from the fact above men- 
tioned. We have seen what the true and absolute end of 
man is ; we have also seen that this is not and cannot be 
accomplished in this life : hence we conclude that this 
life is not all. My nature was made what it is. By vir- 
tue of its organization, I feel desires which have an aim 



428 NATURE AND ESSENCE OF VIRTUE. 

and an end ; I have intelligence which comprehends all 
the reach of these desires, and sensibility to suffer pain 
and anguish when they die impotent and without satisfac- 
tion ; and I also have faculties clothed with power to 
satisfy these desires, even in the face of difSculties and 
obstacles. All this I comprehend in respect to my nature. 
When unhappy in my present condition, I explain to my- 
self this condition ; I see the necessity and suitableness of 
it ; — all, however, on an hypothesis which my whole 
nature cries out for. Is this hypothesis to be regarded 
as a fanciful chimera ? Impossible ! The life to conie 
may be one, or multiple. What we feel authorized to 
affirm, under penalty of condemning to absurdity the uni- 
verse, the v/orld, the present life, God, every thing, is 
that this life is not all. Another life will dawn upon us. 
in which the accomplishment of what we have seen to be 
man's true and absolute destiny will be possible, — will 
be complete. 



THE END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



I I 

012 890 840 7 ^ 



